Three Stories
by Hieronym
Summary: Stories of the end of childhood.
1. Innocence

_Author's note: While I wait for my Patterns omake to come out of proofreading (*ahem*broad hint*ahem*), I figured this might be the right time to go ahead and toss out the first chapter of this, a set of three short stories. I was just going to spend this time revising previous chapters, but I was struck by inspiration, from a dream of all things, and I know better than to turn down inspiration. Next chapter won't be for a while though, since I'll be going back to revision for a while._

_This series stems out of some careful thought about my originally planned alternate-universe story. It's no longer alternate universe. Rather, the first chapter here is New Years 2009 (middle of sixth grade for Touma, Makoto, etc., for those keeping track). Originally, these three chapters were just going to be fluff, to fulfill everyone's shipping tendencies, and they kind of still are, but they now patch over most of the character development that proceeds Advice and Patterns._

_First story is Makoto and Touma. Consider that there are three chapters, and I am nothing if not a fan of symmetry._

* * *

"I don't know how I got talked into this," Makoto said, hunched over and glancing from side to side. He fidgeted inside the printed pink flower kimono. Admittedly, it wasn't that hard an outfit to wear, and he had done this last year, but the psychology of it still bothered him just as much.

"Stop complaining already," Touma said, shoving him in his lower back, surprising him into jumping and almost tripping over his wooden shoes. It achieved her purpose; he straightened his back instinctively.

Makoto glared at her, then glanced around to see if anyone else had seen him. No one had. The streets were only sparsely populated.

"Do I really have to explain it to you, Mako-chan?" Touma asked rhetorically. "Kana was disappointed she didn't get to see us dress up last year and decided to make up for it this year. And by using various techniques to exploit your weaknesses, she got you to cave."

"Weaknesses…" Makoto repeated out loud, but Touma didn't let him finish the train of thought.

"I'm hardly one to talk, though," she said, flaring out her arms to show off her sleeves. "Somehow I ended up wearing this hakama too. We're a matched pair."

"There's something off about that…" Makoto said.

It was New Year's Day, and Kana had taken great pains to ensure that the two of them were dressed appropriately to go to the festival. "Appropriate" meant something quite particular to Kana, however, as they had discovered the year before. That time, a combination of mysterious headaches and bungled scheduling had resulted in them traveling in two separate groups which completely missed each other.

Personally, Makoto had gained the impression that something had happened with Kana which had contributed to the sisters being late, but he had never asked. He also wasn't too sure how Yoshino and Uchida had ended up going in two separate groups but, once again, he knew better than to ask.

Ironically, Kana was once again not travelling with them. They had relatives over, and promised to arrive later. Kana, in particular, had said something about "moving heaven and earth" to get there.

"It's not as if you haven't done this before a hundred times," Touma commented. "Hunching over just makes you look more suspicious."

"Going out in a skirt to do random stuff and doing this are two completely different things!" he exclaimed, flapping his wide sleeves like a bird. "I mean, I can't possibly look right in this! I have this manly build!"

He clamped his hands over his mouth automatically. He had learned to stop saying that, but he still slipped sometimes.

Touma's laugh suddenly died, turning into a grimace as she spotted two girls, dressed for the occasion, approaching them. The girls were looking at them with a strange look. Had they overheard something?

Makoto's eyes widened.

"Have more confidence, Mako-chan!" Touma said with deliberate carelessness, grabbing him into a shoulder-lock. "You look fine to me! Positively cute!"

It was true, so far as she was concerned. At twelve, he still had the necessary build and voice to pull it off, in the same way no one gave her a second glance in her hakama. Neither of them was sure how much longer that particular state of affairs could last.

Still, she couldn't quite suppress a nervous chuckle, but fortunately her act had been enough for the teenagers to seem to lose interest. Makoto looked up at her, face wearing a strange expression.

She sighed in relief, too early.

"They're really getting started earlier and earlier nowadays, aren't they?" one of them commented, passing them on the sidewalk, not even having the courtesy to get out of immediate earshot.

They both tensed.

"Cheer up," the other said, teasing. "I'm sure you'll get a boyfriend one day."

The girl started laughing as the other girl spluttered. Touma waited for them to walk a little further…

As soon as it was safe to do so, they pushed each other away violently, almost stumbling.

"Why the hell do you always do that?" Makoto asked indignantly, smoothing out his kimono and blushing slightly.

"Oh, come off it," Touma countered, looking pointedly away and crossing her arms. "You know very well it's necessary."

He did. They had discovered that, whenever they mounted expeditions like this, people developed a disturbing tendency to make assumptions about what appeared to be, for example, a boy and girl shopping together. They were still young enough to usually dodge suspicion, but all it took was a little push, a little unusual behavior, and they could convince an entire street full of onlookers, which also had the extremely useful side-effect of blinding passerby to anything unusual they might have noticed about the "girl" or the "boy".

It was an effective tactic, and they had both grown sadly adept at exploiting it for defensive advantage; despite his protests, Makoto used it just as frequently as she did.

Strangely, when they were _not_ role-reversed, no one ever thought anything of the sort.

_But why did it feel so weird this time?_

Makoto held a sullen silence.

"If you really hate it so much," Touma pointed out, "we could have just turned around, gone back, and you could have changed back. Kana's not exactly following us around to enforce anything. In fact, we could still do that now."

"It's not worth the work," Makoto said. "And it'd make us late. Besides, I've got to show solidarity with you, or something."

"Excuses, excuses," Touma said flippantly, even though she knew she shouldn't be dismissing his overture of friendship.

Makoto snorted, annoyed.

Touma noted to her satisfaction that Makoto had already forgotten his self-consciousness enough to stop hunching.

They finally approached the stone staircase leading up to the open area where festivities were held. Uchida and Yoshino had promised to be waiting at the top, but they were not to be seen.

"Late," Touma said, leaning with a huff on the inside of the torii at the top. "That's unusual."

She was referring to Yoshino, of course, not Uchida.

Makoto sat down on the cobbled ground next to her. The way in which he sat…

"Oy, Mako-chan," she said, looking down and making a gesture with her knees that she hoped indicated to him what the problem was.

"Ah!" Makoto said, immediately switching to a cross-legged seating posture so that sufficiently distant passerby could no longer look straight up his legs. There was such a thing as being too unselfconscious.

Touma chuckled to herself thinking about it.

"Well, I guess you should be glad Uchida talked you out of going commando underneath, like you wanted to last year."

Makoto jumped up immediately, blushing again. He had his arms up in a confrontational stance.

"You know very well I got carried away!" he said, face red with embarrassment. "And what about you, Mister 'I'm going half-topless because that's what the guys do'? You got carried away too!"

Touma waved her hand dismissively.

"You're just mad you didn't get to see anything."

"Like there's anything to see!"

Makoto regretted those words almost as they were coming out of his mouth, but it was too late. He closed his eyes and cringed in preparation for the inevitable punch.

It didn't come.

He blinked his eyes in confusion. Touma just looked at him archly.

"Nicely played," she admitted, standing up, smiling mischievously. "But why are you expecting me to get angry? I'm the one standing here in a hakama, all flat-chested. I prove your point for you. But—"

Here she leaned forward and poked him in the chest.

"If there's anybody I'm immune to criticism from, it's you, Miss Pink Flower Kimono."

He pouted and made an annoyed face, conceding the point.

"Besides," Touma said offhand, looking off into a corner. "We compared this one time and I'm actually the larg—"

"Too much information, Touma!" Makoto interrupted, secretly filing the fact away into a corner of his mind. Of course he couldn't exactly admit that…

Touma looked at him strangely, seemingly confused. She scratched her face, but he had no idea what the gesture indicated.

"Ah, yes," Touma said, finally. "You see, sometimes I forget—"

Makoto clapped her on the back, surprising her into silence.

"Alright, alright," he conceded. "I'll be good. I won't complain. We'll have fun. Can we _please _talk about something other than cross-dressing?"

Touma cringed, but fortunately by now there were too many people swirling around them for any particular person to notice anything he had said.

Makoto slid down the edge of the arch, back to the floor. Touma opened her mouth to say something—

"Hey!" a voice yelled, interrupting her.

Uchida stormed up the stairs, startling them both, looking extremely angry. Unsure what to do, Touma started an uncertain wave.

Before they even had time to exchange pleasantries, Uchida grabbed Makoto by the collar, picking him slightly off the ground with more strength than Touma thought she had.

"I'm glad you're having fun, Mako-chan," she growled, shaking him. "But if you get this thing"—she gestured at his outfit—"dirty, I _will_ kill you. Think about that. Now stop sitting on the floor."

Makoto jumped up and started patting down the back of his kimono.

"I'm—I'm sorry," he spluttered. "I was just tired and I didn't know it was such a big deal, so I thought—"

"Come on, Uchida," Touma said, having gotten over her shock enough to try and intercede. "We can wash it later. We didn't think—"

She stopped talking when Yoshino's hand appeared on Uchida's shoulder. Uchida turned to look. Yoshino looked at her.

"I'm sorry," Uchida said, only a few moments later. "I'm feeling a little edgy today."

"That's—that's alright," Makoto said, looking suitably cowed by Uchida's outburst.

"I can't believe Mako-chan didn't own any kimonos," Yoshino said cheerfully, stepping forward. "She could have just borrowed one of mine. I have plenty."

"No! You can't!" Uchida warned. "It's ah, uh…"

"Oh?" Yoshino asked after watching Uchida stay tongue-tied for a moment. "Why not?"

"Well, that's because…"Uchida began again, clearly trying to think of something to say.

"We should go already!" Touma interrupted. "We've already been standing out here too long!"

Yoshino glanced at her.

"I guess," she agreed.

* * *

"Guys," Makoto began.

"_Girls_," Touma whispered in his ear as he paused to consider what to say.

"_Girls_," he said, skipping only a beat. "Uchida. Yoshino. You need to accept that you're not going to succeed. These games are rigged."

For a moment, they thought they wouldn't receive a response.

"I don't care!" Uchida said suddenly. "I'm winning this damn thing!"

"This damn thing" was a run-of-the mill carnival game. Throw some rings, land them on the necks of the bottles in the center of booth. That wasn't the point. The point was the major prize for this particular booth was some sort of stuffed horse. Uchida had spotted it and immediately developed a sudden irrational fixation on winning it.

_What's with Uchida today?_ Touma thought.

"For the amount of money that's been spent here," Touma said, annoyed by Uchida's tone," I could go buy the damn thing. Probably three times over. We came to have fun. Can we go already?"

Uchida leaned illegally over the wooden counter and tossed another ring, careless with frustration. She released a disappointed sigh as it rattled off yet again.

They had spent absurdly long watching Uchida collect a small pile of consolation prizes, before finally Yoshino interceded, literally rolling up her sleeves—only to fail just as spectacularly.

After that, they had all taken their shot at it, but only Yoshino and Uchida had possessed the stamina to keep trying over and over. Yoshino's tosses were more measured, but hardly any more successful.

"We're not leaving," Yoshino said, lip set in a stubborn expression, looking just as manic as Uchida.

Makoto and Touma glanced at each other.

"Well, can the two of us at least go somewhere else then?" Makoto asked. "This is boring!"

He expected a bit of an argument.

"Go ahead," Yoshino said instead, with no pause at all.

They blinked in surprise at the response, watching Yoshino pay the girl manning the stall, who was clearly starting to feel guilty about taking their money.

After a moment, the two of them edged away from the stall.

"What's going on today?" Makoto said, hurt by their abrupt dismissal. "Even Yoshino is acting strange. I've never seen them like this. It makes no sense."

"Who knows?" Touma commented, stretching both her arms above her head, holding a baton she had won earlier from another stall. "Maybe they're just having a rough day or something."

They walked in silence for a while, each of them glancing over the stalls in their immediate vicinity for anything interesting. Finally, Makoto stopped in front of one.

"You want to try it?" Touma asked, looking at the booth skeptically.

"I've always wanted to try one of these shooting games," Makoto explained, paying the old woman at the stall a small part of his substantial new years' money.

"I don't know," he continued. "I guess I just want to feel like I'm firing a gun."

"You don't have to explain," Touma said, waving for him to go ahead. "Have at it. I'll watch."

_Nice prizes though_… she thought.

Makoto took careful aim with the pellet gun, quietly hoping that he was doing it at least somewhat correctly.

_He's not doing it right at all_, Touma thought. _He really does suck at these._

He fired before she could say anything.

It didn't matter. He hit his target on the first try. It almost seemed like compensation for all those failures earlier.

"Oh, congratulations," Touma said, shifting a little with surprise. "You finally won something!"

Makoto gave her a dirty look.

He received the prize, one of those miniature basketball and hoop sets. He didn't really want it, but it was what they had.

_I guess I can hang it on the wall or something,_ he thought.

He paused for a moment, leaning on the counter, staring forward pensively. The stallkeeper looked at him curiously.

"You can have it," he said suddenly, thrusting it off-hand to Touma, who was standing behind him.

Touma looked at it in confusion, stepping back slightly.

"Didn't you want one?" he asked, turning to look at her with a serious expression. "I heard you talking about it to Chiaki. Go on. Take it. Give me something later."

She stared at it for a moment.

"Oh, uh, right," Touma said, removing it from his grasp. "Thanks."

Makoto smiled ironically, standing up to leave.

"Just promise to make fun of me a little less for a while," he enjoined.

After a few seconds, Touma turned silently to leave, assuming Makoto would follow. For some reason she couldn't pinpoint, that whole exchange had been unusually awkward, and she hadn't been able to think of something to say. It bothered her.

"Hey! You two!" the boothkeeper yelled at them a few seconds later. "Come back!"

They looked back, and curiously watched the old woman exit the stand and shuffle rapidly up to them, back slightly hunched.

"Here you go," the old woman said, smiling amiably, and holding something out in her hands.

Makoto took it, inspecting it. It was a group of three tiny plastic flowers.

"It's a bonus prize for doing it on the first try," the woman explained. "You can put it in your hair or something."

"Ah, yes, that's…right," Makoto agreed warily. "Thank you."

The woman continued to look at him, as if expecting something. He looked back at her, trying to read in her face what she wanted.

"I think she wants you to actually do it," Touma whispered to him, hand at her mouth.

"Ah, right," Makoto said, politely following through and sticking the flowers into his hair. The woman nodded contently.

They turned to leave again.

"You waste our money, giving away stuff like that!" A man yelled from behind them, as they were walking away.

"Maybe this wouldn't happen if you would get up and man the stall yourself!" the woman yelled back. "What happened to the romantic fool I married?"

"He married _you_!" The man retorted.

Touma and Makoto glanced at each other, and walked away quite a bit faster.

* * *

It was nearly lunchtime, so they went back to the booth with the stuffed horse to look for Yoshino and Uchida, but they were nowhere to be found. As the girl there explained:

"I felt sorry for your friends, so I let them trade in their stack of consolation prizes for what they wanted. I think they left to go look for you."

This was the sort of situation where Touma wished she had a cell phone.

They bought lunch off a vendor, a meal that consisted entirely of fried things on sticks, and proceeded to wander the area, and doing all the stereotypical things, ranging from Makoto failing to knock down the stacked bottles with a baseball, and Touma succeeding, to trying on a variety of pointless masks, to goldfish scooping.

When Makoto finally left the booth with a bag filled with water and a single fish, he suggested they go fulfill the alleged purpose of their trip: Donate some coins to the temple, pray a little, and buy a new year's fortune. After all, weren't they supposed to meet the sisters there, in front of the fortune-telling booth? That meant Yoshino and Uchida would probably be there too.

Touma jerked around mid-walk and grabbed Makoto's arm to read his watch. She had forgotten about it entirely.

"Four thirty. _Four thirty!_ We're late," she said. "We're _an hour_ late. Why didn't you remind me earlier?"

Makoto's eyes widened.

"I didn't—I didn't—no, it can't be that late!" he said, shaking his head slightly. "I thought we had plenty of time. We must have lost track of time…"

"Let's go," Touma ordered, quickening her pace into a half-run. Makoto struggled to keep up. If only those fish had been a little more cooperative…

When they got there, the others were nowhere to be found.

Touma collapsed onto the fortune-telling booth in frustration, stopping her run, tossing her prizes into a pile onto the counter.

"Damn it," she said simply.

"Well, surely they wouldn't just ditch us," Makoto said reassuringly, finally managing to catch up, a little out of breath, feeling guilty about having shaken the fish in its bag. "We can just hang around a while, ah, throw in some coins—"

The attendant cleared her throat. They looked up.

"Can I help you?" she asked, looking skeptical of them.

Makoto looked at Touma, who looked despondent, head in her arms.

"Oh, uh, two fortune-telling slips," he said, putting down the fish and reaching into his purse for the necessary money.

"Certainly," the girl said.

Despite her seeming lethargy, Touma reached into the bin and grabbed one, relieving Makoto of the need to try and convince her.

Makoto sighed. He was just glad he didn't have to spend ten minutes cheering Touma up, like he was afraid might have been necessary.

He grabbed one of his own, read it, and scowled at it.

"Well?" Touma asked, after a moment, too dignified to look over his shoulder. "Going to tell me?"

"Overall: Slightly Good luck," he read out loud, in the voice of someone reciting a passage. "This year will be spent mostly in anticipation of the next. Nothing much will happen externally, but introspection will be extremely fruitful. Overall, you will be stuck in a holding pattern. Career: Excellent. You will experience a great unexpected success. Remember who got you there. Work hard. Finances: Poor. You will find yourself unable to resist spending your money, but will not regret what you spend. Health: Good. There will be nothing to concern you, though you will wish to be more energetic at times. Romance: Fair. What you seek will be unavailable, and your lack of understanding will undermine you. Beware yourself above all."

He blinked at it briefly, then looked at Touma.

"Doesn't that last one kind of sound 'Poor' instead of 'Fair'?" he asked.

"Bah," she dismissed, waving her hand. "These things are always vague and useless. Besides, what does romance even mean at our age?"

He continued to stare at her. She stared back.

"Oh, right," she said, suddenly realizing what he was implying. "Mine. I should reciprocate."

She cleared her throat and held her slip up the light.

"Overall: Very good luck. Nearly everything will go well for you, giving you the resources to handle what may be coming. Do not get overconfident, and remember that though it will be mostly smooth flying, there will be significant turbulence near the end. Career: Good. A simple reallocation of priorities will enable you to finally fulfill your potential. Finances: Excellent. At times, it will seem as if money is falling from the sky. Resist the urge to spend, and save it for a rainy day. Health: Excellent. You may very well be the envy of your friends and colleagues. Romance: Fair. The veil will be lifted from your eyes, but the ramifications of this will be anything but simple."

They looked at each other again, and shrugged nearly simultaneously.

"Ah, whatever," Touma said. Let's just go tie them up."

They walked the five feet to the tree covered with tied-up pieces of paper, almost as if trying to replace the leaves that were missing.

"Aw, shit!" Touma said midway through tying hers, suppressing both a louder exclamation and a more pungent vulgarism.

"What is it?" Makoto asked, dropping his arms at looking at her painfully grimaced face.

Touma held her silence and finished tying before stopping to look at her finger.

"It's fine," she said, holding her finger. "Just a papercut."

"Really?" Makoto asked, leaning over to look. "Let me see it."

"It's fine," Touma insisted.

Makoto grabbed her hand and wordlessly inspected her finger, thinking about where he could get a bandage. Touma bore the inspection stoically, looking back at the booth and its attendant, and then at a couple who dodged her look when they realized she was watching. Something about their expressions…that feeling was back again.

And then a sound caught her ear.

"Mako-chan," she said.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Do you hear…laughter?" she asked, her face showing concentration.

Makoto dropped her hand. There was nothing productive he could do for it, anyway.

He tilted his head to listen and wrinkled his forehead for a moment.

"Yes…yes, I do," he replied.

"And does it sound like Kana?" Touma added.

Makoto looked at her, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes. Yes it does."

They picked up their things from the floor and marched to the far end of the fortune-telling booth, drawing a curious look from the attendant.

When they rounded the corner, they found, as they expected, Kana crouched on the ground, doubled up with laughter, trying to stifle it with a hand over her mouth.

"And just what is so funny?" Touma asked, a bit indignantly, crossing her arms, careful to keep her finger from touching anything.

Kana looked up, surprised—and started laughing even harder.

They waited.

"You—you guys don't understand," Kana managed to choke out, finally, still laughing but running out of breath.

She pointed with a shaky finger at Touma.

"Y—you, and hi—her," she began, in between fits of laughter. "You two. The costumes. The papercut—"

She went back to laughing uncontrollably.

They waited for Kana to finish, a little unsettled.

Finally, Kana struggled to her feet, leaning on the booth, kimono waving around her legs.

"It was totally worth it," she said, wiping her mouth the back of her hand. "It was all worth it."

"I'm glad you're having fun," Touma said, "and I'm sorry we were late, but would you mind explaining to us just what is it about my papercut that is so hilarious?"

Kana looked at their serious expressions, and barely stifled renewed laughter. She took a few deep breaths to stabilize herself.

"You two really don't have a clue, do you?"

They shook their heads.

Touma thought she saw Kana's eyes flash.

"And I'm not going to tell you," she said, making a stubborn expression.

"What? Why not?" Makoto demanded.

"I don't want to ruin it," she responded absently. "And…"

Her eyes focused, not on them, but on a patch of empty air. Touma had seen this look before; it mean the wheels were turning in her head.

"Well, I'll be seeing you," Kana said, turning around abruptly. She started to walk off.

"Hey! Where are you going? You can't just leave!" Touma asked.

"You guys were so late that Chiaki and Haruka went home already," she said, ignoring her. "We've got relatives over. I only stuck around to see you two. If you stand right there, Yoshino and Uchida should be back in ten minutes or so. They went to look for you. Tell them I left."

She waved goodbye with one hand, her back still turned towards them.

"Hey!" Touma repeated, bracing herself to sprint after her, but Makoto held her back, with a hand on her shoulder.

"She'll never tell you now that she's decided," he said, when she looked at him. "Might as well save your energy."

Touma leaned onto the wall with a thump.

"I don't like it," she insisted. "We should try to figure it out."

Makoto scratched the back of his neck.

_Maybe it's just me_, she thought.

"Why not?" Makoto said. "We can discuss it later. But let's go ring the bell and stuff first. It's getting late. If we do it fast enough, we can get back in time, and we can keep an eye out for the other two."

And that was what they did.

* * *

Dinner was once again vendor food, and the four of them found a relatively isolated spot to watch the modest fireworks that been planned in their area. They sat on the grass, surrounded by stuffed animals and other loot from the day. Makoto gave his fish to Yoshino, which was really the only thing he could do with it, since she was the only who had anywhere to put it.

Yoshino and Uchida seemed to have returned to normal. Looking at them, Touma reflected on why they had seemed so off that morning. They hadn't done anything _too_ out of the ordinary but…it was almost as if they had been _trying_ to seem normal.

_That's the right way to describe it_, she thought._ They were trying too hard to act normal, and they hadn't acted normal at all_.

_Ah well. As long as they're okay now. We don't have to say anything._

She looked up, at the blossoming patterns of color in the sky, and had a bit of an insight.

_That must be it, _She thought.

She had felt strangely out of sorts the whole day, as if the whole thing were uncomfortable, unsettling, and she had done her best to ignore it.

_I must have been acting weird the whole time_, she thought. _That must have been what set Kana off. That and the, uh, cross-dressing._

Of course, that still didn't explain why the day had been unsettling to start with.

"Something wrong?" Yoshino asked, looking at her out of the corner of her eye, slightly concerned.

"Ah, no, nothing," she said.

It would probably go away. That seemed to have worked for Uchida and Yoshino.

It was nothing major.

Later, on the way home, just before he turned to go into where he lived, Makoto asked if she wanted to discuss about Kana like they had planned.

"No, it's okay," she said. "It's probably not a big deal."

"You sure?" he asked. "I mean, we could talk in my room, after I, uh, get changed. You could even give a distraction to help me, while I climb in the window."

There it was again. The sensation that something was ineffably _off_. As if something needed to be dealt with, and she shouldn't be going home. She looked at him and felt…as if…she wanted to do something. It was so vague.

"Hello?" he asked, waving his hand uncertainly.

"You okay?" he asked again, trying to read her expression in the light of the streetlamp.

"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm fine," she said, startled out of her train of thought.

Makoto looked at her skeptically.

"I'm fine," she repeated reassuringly. "I need to be getting home."

"Well, I'll be seeing you then," he said, still skeptical, but moving to go.

"See you," she said, waving.

She watched for a moment longer, then turned to go home, where she could sleep, and do her best to forget.


	2. Freedom

_Author's Note: February-March 2009, for those keeping track_

* * *

"I can't believe they're really doing it," Makoto said.

He strode over and sat down, still a little shaken from having peered into the other room. There, he had observed a spectacle which defied all reason.

"You might as well come out and say it," Uchida said sardonically, glancing at him from across the table. "You can't believe _she's_ doing it."

"It just doesn't seem right," he said.

They were seated around the Minami dining room table. Occupying the other axis of the square table were Haruka and Chiaki. As always, there was tea and snacks on the table but, used to lounging around the kotatsu as they all were, they couldn't help but be a little uncomfortable.

Makoto was, of course, in disguise.

The "she" Uchida was referring to was Kana, of course, who had taken to her high school entrance exams with an unexpected ferocity, assembling all of her friends into the main room for a study session and imperiously sealing the rest of them out. Haruka, noting the sheer rarity of this kind of event, had rather uncharacteristically acceded.

Which left them out here, twiddling their thumbs. Somehow, the change of scenery had thrown them all off-kilter.

"Do you know what's gotten into her?" Uchida asked, leaning over towards Chiaki.

Chiaki didn't answer. In fact, she didn't even seem to have heard Uchida. Instead, she kept idly brushing the head of Fujioka the stuffed bear.

She was in a bad mood, but that happened sometimes.

Makoto watched her. This kind of unresponsiveness was surprisingly typical for her, and nothing to worry about. So too was the bad mood. What wasn't typical was the way it was dragging everyone else down with her.

This dark aura…that was the kind of the thing she usually saved for when she thought no one was watching.

He felt a sudden chill.

There it was again—the feeling that something was wrong.

_What is it?_ he growled to himself, frustrated. _Why do I always feel this?_

He could never put his finger on it. It was as if…it gave him the strong urge to grab her, shake her awake, make her smile somehow.

No, that was poor description. It only described what he wanted _to do_, not _why_.

He didn't know why.

Madness. Even her own sisters would never believe his words.

"Is something wrong?" Haruka asked, looking at him with concern. He realized that he had accidentally leaned into a despondent-looking position on the table.

"Ah, no, nothing," he said hastily, sitting up and forcing a smile. "I'm just tired."

Haruka nodded and smiled at him amiably, accepting his explanation.

Once, that smile would have brightened his whole day. It still warmed his heart.

But now, like some sort of drug, its effects were wearing off. He had seen it too much, had finally realized what was always obvious, that that benevolence was not for him, but for the world in general.

He wanted to think better of himself, that he wasn't selfish enough to demand something just for him—but he was, and he knew it. It had been a painful revelation, and one he had resisted, but he had admitted to himself that, outside of the freakishly impossible event of her actually reciprocating, it would never be enough. It wasn't enough. It wasn't even enough to explain why he was here.

_That _had stung him at his very core. For if he wasn't here for Haruka, then why _was_ he here?

In drag no less.

Uchida looked at him. Ordinarily, she would have smirked, but she seemed to have realized he wasn't reacting to Haruka like he did normally.

The sound of Haruka's teacup lightly hitting the table refocused their attention.

"It's her friends," Haruka said, answering Uchida's question with unusual efficiency. "Academically, chances are that Riko-chan will be attending a better school than either her or Fujioka, and Keiko-chan is in another stratosphere. Kana's grades have been creeping up the whole year, but that kind of performance won't be enough to keep them together, not after the entrance exams."

She paused to evaluate their responses.

Uchida's eye twitched.

"But they still have a chance!" Uchida insisted suddenly, leaning forward with surprising emphasis. "It's the exams that matter, not their grades!"

Haruka looked at her with curiosity.

"Well, yes," she said, smiling wryly. "That's what has Kana fired up. Even that girl knows better than to try to convince Keiko-chan to sandbag on the test—not that she didn't joke about it. But still…"

Haruka shook her head.

"It's unlikely. They can't bleed enough knowledge out of Keiko-chan, even if they still have two weeks left, even if they're suddenly serious about studying."

She paused.

"She'll get over it," Haruka said, forcing an insincere shrug. "Everyone does. At least she'll still have Fujioka to bug."

Uchida leaned back, tilting her chair, looking at the ceiling.

"What a nice idea," she mused wistfully, rocking slightly. "Working together with your friends, sticking together…"

"Don't lean back in the chair," Haruka ordered sternly.

Makoto realized, suddenly, that Uchida's train of thought was mirroring his own. This whole conversation had served to remind them, depressingly, that they and Kana were practically in the same boat. It was conspicuously apparent where they would all be in a couple of months: Yoshino and Chiaki, off in some prestigious school somewhere, Shuuichi somewhere below them, and the rest of them languishing in a mediocre school somewhere, probably Kana's current school.

Instead of trying to do something about it, here they were goofing off, drinking tea. None of them seemed to have the will to change things—though he wondered what Yoshino was doing, letting things drag on like this.

Haruka leaned forward unexpectedly.

"Anyway," she said, palms on the table, with authentic energy. "I have an idea for you guys!"

They looked at her expectantly. Even Chiaki looked up.

"I doubt any of them will want to play, even after dinner," Haruka said, referring to Kana and the others. "You guys are just getting in each other's way. So why don't you go out to eat today? My treat. It'll be like a little adventure."

They blinked at her.

"Oh, no, we could hardly—" he began.

"Us? Alone? But—" Uchida said simultaneously.

"Don't worry about it," Haruka interrupted, waving off their concerns. "Mako-chan here can chaperone you, but none of you are old enough to turn down something like this."

She made the last phrase sound almost like a warning.

"Besides," she added, "you'll be saving me work cooking. Either way you'll be eating my food."

It was a good argument, except for that part where she thought "Mako-chan" was qualified to chaperone—but the look Haruka gave them told them not to argue.

"And see if maybe it will cheer up Miss Grouchy over here," Haruka finished.

"I'm not being grouchy," Chiaki protested immediately, flagrantly lying.

They looked at her. It was the first thing she had said for quite a while, and of course it was in response to Haruka. She glared back at them.

"Anyway," Haruka said, getting up, "let me get you some cash and send you on your way."

A brief ten minutes later, they crowded out the door, bundled in jackets, Chiaki last, still looking more reluctant than was polite.

* * *

By mutual agreement, and Haruka's suggestion, they didn't go anywhere ambitious. Instead they decamped to a modest family restaurant nearby.

They were by far the youngest group to walk through the door of the squat, colorful building. Uchida and Makoto glanced at each other, once again on the same wavelength, though neither wanted to admit it out loud.

They had never done this before.

True to form, Chiaki glared at them for hesitating.

It was one thing to watch movies with a friend, or buy food off a vendor, but to actually go into a sit-down restaurant and eat was…just not something elementary school kids did.

Though they would be in middle school soon enough.

_That's right!_ Makoto thought. _I'm supposed to be the chaperone here!_

Well, it couldn't be that hard, right? It was just walking up to the person at the little podium and asking to be seated. Just because he'd never done it before didn't mean it was anything particularly involved.

No one yet had managed to peer through his disguise. This wasn't going to be the first, he resolved.

"Right this way," a voice next to him said.

He jumped, startled, then turned to face the source.

"Three, right?" the waitress asked rhetorically, obviously deciding they were the cutest group she had seen all day.

He nodded, internally berating himself. Seriously, who had to pause before getting a seat in a damn restaurant?

For drinks, Chiaki ordered her customary soda, Uchida got milk tea, and he decided to be modest and make do with water. The waitress smiled at them and left.

He looked down for a moment, making absolutely sure, one more time, that his disguise was impenetrable.

"Distracted?" Chiaki asked.

He looked up, surprised.

"Ah, yes," he said hastily, "I was just…thinking about stuff."

Makoto watched her face. She still seemed off, but had apparently decided to shake off the vestiges of her bad mood.

"You could have waited until we were seated," Uchida said, looking at him from the corner of her eye. Her tone was mildly peeved.

"S—sorry," he apologized meekly.

Chiaki tilted her head slightly.

"You're pretty shy, aren't you, Mako-chan?" she asked, matter-of-factly.

He felt his cheeks color slightly, and he looked away. No one would ever describe him as shy, not in his normal self, but as Mako-chan, it was just…

"Well, don't be," Chiaki asserted, leaning forward slightly. "There's no reason you have to hide yourself, even with strangers. Just let it come naturally."

He swallowed and nodded—then froze.

Was she—was she implying she had figured it out? Was she telling him—

He shook his head vigorously. He couldn't let himself fall into that trap again. She couldn't know. She couldn't. Those words—they were just an eerie coincidence.

These coincidences did seem to happen with disturbing frequency, though.

Chiaki took his unintentional headshake as a refusal, made an annoyed noise, and leaned back into her seat.

"Well, whatever," she said dismissively. "Do what you want."

_Damn it_, he thought.

"She's right, Mako-chan," Uchida said.

He glared at her, expecting to see that insufferable smirk of hers once again, but she had her face buried in the menu. Maybe she had just made that statement offhand.

"I was going to do it for you," Chiaki said, picking up her menu. "But I thought I'd let you do it. Waitress ruined it, though."

He placed his head on the table in frustration. He wasn't shy! That just wasn't true! But who could blame him for feeling uncomfortable as Mako-chan? And now Chiaki clearly thought he was a meek little middle schooler who needed her attention despite her supposedly younger age. It felt—

He stopped, his eyes popping open, the side of his head still on the table.

It didn't feel bad at all. He had thought he would hate it, but, stopping to actually analyze how he felt…it actually felt kind of good.

_Of course it does._

It was the same feeling he had every time she showed concern or kindness towards him, a phenomenon that was markedly more common when he was Mako-chan. It was one of the things that kept him coming back, despite everything. He just had to have another hit. Only, unlike Haruka's general beneficence, it didn't seem to be wearing off.

To be fully honest, it was a goodly percentage of why he kept being Mako-chan. The rest had to do with…

It wasn't even sufficiently precise to say that she was nicer to Mako-chan. No, the more accurate phrasing was she was nice _only_ when he was Mako-chan.

_Well, there was that Valentines chocolate last week…_

He almost wanted to chuckle at his own naivety. True, he _would_ have been elated—except that he knew, through convoluted means, that that particular chocolate had been ruined by contact with the floor. He had discounted it almost the moment he received it…which didn't mean he hadn't kept it.

The only times she had ever shown concern for _Makoto_ was indirectly, to other people, when Makoto wasn't around to hear it, or so she thought.

Why was that?

"What is it _now_?" Uchida asked, looking queerly at his wide-eyed expression. She seemed a combination of annoyed, weirded out…and slightly concerned.

Before he could say anything, the waitress arrived with their drinks.

* * *

They finished their dinner in relative silence. Despite all the attempts of the "family" restaurant, the atmosphere just wasn't as conducive to banter as Minami's place.

Uchida bid them farewell when they exited the restaurant. It was getting late, after all, and she had stuff to do. They waved as she walked away.

It was time for Makoto to head home, too. The longer he waited, the more difficult it would be for him to climb in his window and change without his parents noticing; more specifically, the greater the probability that there would be two people waiting instead of one.

Instead, he followed Chiaki back when she turned and strode off. Remembering her dark mood of earlier, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

He watched her long, straight hair sway in counterpoint to her steps, barely disturbing the top-heavy mound crowning her head.

"So, uh…" he began.

She slowed down, almost imperceptibly, but he noticed.

"I hope Kana succeeds," he said. "I mean, it's unlikely, but I can imagine how she feels. I wouldn't want to be separated from my friends also."

Chiaki slowed even more, her hair whipping against her back.

Makoto slowed also, deciding not to catch up.

"I'm sure she'll do fine," Chiaki said, her voice carrying on the crisp spring air. "I doubt she'll really do well enough to keep up with Keiko, but she should be able, at least, to pull off a Riko-level performance."

"I see," Makoto said, simply.

"On some level," Chiaki added," that girl hates being thought of as stupid. I'm sure of it."

He instinctively looked at Chiaki's head, as if he could somehow read her expression on the back of her head.

"Do you really think so?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

"I don't insult her as much anymore," Chiaki said.

She paused.

"I'm sure she's determined," she continued, dropping the topic, "and I honestly don't know how far she could go with this. But if she really hates being thought of like that, then I don't understand: why does she…"

He looked up at the incomplete sentence, found her profile dominating his field of view, and barely stopped in time to avoid knocking her over. As it was, he buried his face into her hair.

"Ah, sorry! Sorry!" he apologized immediately, recoiling.

She looked at him reproachfully, turning her head to peer at him. When had she stopped?

"I was going to say all this treating her carefully has made me miss having something to punch," she commented. "Are you volunteering as her replacement?"

"Ah, no, definitely not!" he said, waving his hands and stepping back just in case.

He looked around at their surroundings. They were across the street from the building where she lived, near some half-grown trees.

"Speaking of which…" she said, pausing again and turning to face him.

"What?" he asked, feeling uncomfortable under her gaze.

"How did you deal with it?" she asked, looking at him seriously. "You know, having to leave all your friends behind? Kana's not the only facing tests and a new school."

He blinked, then looked down, away from her eyes, comprehension dawning within him. So was this it? That was what she was thinking about all this time? This was the reason he kept feeling something was wrong?

_This is why she keeps pushing Makoto away! It's because I won't stick around!_

He realized, though, that he had no actual advice to give, since he was not truly a middle-schooler, whatever she thought.

Makoto wished he knew the answer himself. He swallowed. He'd have to come up with something.

"Well, you just try to do the best you can with the time you have left," he said, knowing he wasn't giving the answer she wanted to hear. "And then afterward you do your best to stay in touch. I mean, I doubt Touma is going to stop visiting just because you're in different schools."

He was caught in a bind between being staying in character and his own motives.

"What if that's not acceptable?" she asked, voice a bit quieter.

He looked back up, and found her looking away, at the window of her flat near the top of the building.

"What if I'll miss them too much?" she asked, turning back to look him in the eye. "Without people like Uchida, or Touma, or Makoto—ah, you don't know him—, who can I vent my anger on? Who can I talk to? None of them will make it to the school I'll be trying for. And I _have_ to go. I can't disappoint Haruka."

Makoto looked back at her eyes, full of determination and sadness. He looked away again.

He knew the proper answer. He knew he was supposed to tell her that she would be fine, she could make new friends, that her old friends could keep visiting, but he couldn't form the words.

How could he? How could he tell her to leave them behind?

But then what?

He could preach maturity and stoicism, but he had no right to. Not when his own academic failures were the reason for the problem. Not when it was only two weeks from entrance exams, and here he was, decidedly _not_ studying—

He stopped.

Makoto's eyes widened with sudden realization. Kana had given them the answer! She had been smarter than any of them.

"Why don't you do what Kana is doing?" he asked, looking up and pinning her with his eyes, his sudden excitement disturbing his speech. "It's not written in stone that he—they'll fail. Why not try to be Keiko, and push them to study for the remaining time? Who knows? Uchida said it: it's only the exams that matter!"

She looked back, and she could see in her startled eyes that she hadn't thought of it, that she was starting to think it through.

"That'll never work," she scoffed half-heartedly, her expression belying her words. "I could never convince them to do it, and even if I could, they'll never get in. It's impossible."

"How can you know?" he insisted, leaning forward, tossing aside all concerns about staying in character. "How can you know until you try? You can't! And I think your friends will surprise you. Don't go underrating them so quickly! They might surprise you."

He found himself suddenly unable to contain himself. Having just come up with the idea, he shocked himself with the realization that he was entirely serious about following through on the implementation.

_At least one of her friends will surprise her_, he thought with astonishment. _Me_.

Until then, he hadn't understood just how much he himself was dreading being separated.

"At least this way," he continued," you won't have just given up! I always regretted not trying harder, back when I was taking the same exams."

He grimaced slightly at this last rhetorical lie. Surely she must have noticed that "Mako-chan" wasn't behaving like Mako-chan at all. Hopefully she was too distracted to have noticed.

"I—" she began, then stopped, clearly overwhelmed by his unexpected fervency.

She looked at him shakily. It wasn't what she was expecting but…perhaps it was what she wanted.

"Why not?" he asked, having managed to calm down.

She did a sudden about-face, dodging his look. She was hiding her expression, he realized.

"I'll consider it," she said, a moment later, voice preternaturally calm.

He watched her head bob, just a little, up-and-down, carrying her hair with it.

"I'll consider it," she repeated again, after a moment.

He swallowed and took a deep breath, standing up straight.

"Chiaki," he said, deciding he needed to cover for him. "I'm sorry for that. It's just, I was remembering myself, back in sixth grade, and too be honest I was never happy with the way—"

"No, I understand," she interrupting tersely.

He stopped.

"We need to head back," she said. "I don't know why we're standing here like this, but…"

She had started to move, but paused one more time.

"Thank you, Mako-chan," she said, turning. "I knew you'd come through with something, senpai."

She paused deliberately before the last word.

She smiled gratefully at him. It took his breath away.

"Uh, you're wel—" he started to stammer, way too late, but she was already crossing the street, ignoring him.

He followed, in a buoyant mood.

It wasn't until they reached the doorway that the emotion seeped out of him enough for him to remember, finally, that he had just signed away his free time for the rest of the month

But…

He placed his hand on the doorjamb, and thought about that smile, that smile meant just for him.

He thought the possibility finally laying to rest what was hurting Chiaki. All it would take is some studying—okay, a lot of studying.

Of course it was worth it.

Of course.

* * *

It was only a few short days before Chiaki and Yoshino lured their academic inferiors to Chiaki's home with promises of food and some sort of surprise. They got their surprise, alright—or at least everyone but Makoto did. He did his best not to show his mixed feelings of anticipation and dread.

"What is this?" Touma asked incredulously when it was revealed that the surprise was really a heavy stack of exercise books and textbooks stacked on Chiaki's bed.

Touma looked back, at the doorway.

"What are you guys—"

She stopped mid-sentence, having deduced in that brief interim the rough outlines of what was going on. Yoshino and Chiaki had, of course, maneuvered themselves to block the only entrance, just in case.

"We have always been disappointed in your academic performance," Yoshino began, "but, metaphorically, now is when the shit hits the fan, so to speak."

Chiaki, who had been busy glaring at them in favor of letting of letting the supposedly more eloquent Yoshino speak, glanced at her in surprise at this last line.

"Left to your own devices," Yoshino continued, unperturbed, giving her words the air of a speech, "it is highly unlikely that any of you would successfully put together a study effort worthy of that description, despite the fact that none of us are pleased by the upcoming school change. Since neither Chiaki nor I are willing to refrain from going to the best school we can enter, the burden falls upon you to do better. We are here to provide discipline and teaching—and, hopefully, we, too, will learn a little from this experience."

She took a breath at the end. Touma looked at them both like they were absolutely insane. Makoto did his best to mimic her expression. Uchida, on the other hand, looked hardly surprised at all.

"Are—are you serious?" Touma asked, eyes wide. "What exactly are you suggesting?"

"We're suggesting," Chiaki said, "that you spend the next two weeks cramming with the rest of us. We're going to spend every day after school doing this. And every weekend. And every night. I've already worked it out with Haruka. You can bring your own food, or help out with groceries. It will be mind-numbing, but I am not letting you _not_ do this."

Her voice brooked no argument.

"But—" Touma began, trying anyway.

"You can practice to make the soccer team after exams," Chiaki said, anticipating her objection. "Not now. You know you'll have plenty of time later."

Makoto kept his mouth shut, having already decided that it was more convincing to fake unrealistic speechlessness than to try to fake being surprised.

Chiaki gave each of a look in turn, daring them to protest.

"You guys are right," Uchida volunteered, looking more relieved than anything.

They looked at her, and she shared a look with Yoshino.

"I am willing to try," she said, nodding decisively, making one of her more determined expressions.

Touma, freshly shocked by Uchida's amenity to the proposal, looked at Makoto for his response.

"I…"he began, wavering under Touma's expectant gaze.

He swallowed.

"I think we should," he said. "I mean, I don't want to be separated either, and at least this way, no one can ever accuse us of not trying."

In his ears, the words rang false, obviously rehearsed, but Touma looked shaken by his capitulation.

"I..." she began.

They watched as she thought about it.

She nodded to herself, at first slowly, then more decisively.

"Alright," she conceded, looking at the floor. "Alright. I was just…surprised by the way this was done. But now that I think about it, it's a good plan. It must be done. I can't lose you two."

He let out a breath, relieved. He knew that she had been resisting solely from inertia and surprise, but he had still been worried she might refuse.

Well, of course, she was probably at least a little averse to committing herself to the two-week study regimen from hell.

"Then let's start right now," Yoshino suggested.

* * *

It was exactly as hellish as predicted.

Day in, day out, weekends blurring into weekdays, the two weeks passed in an insensate blur of literature, writing, math, and science. At first, they joked about it on the long walks and bus rides home, but this gradually subsided as they grew more tired. Their brains throbbed with forced knowledge, and they became disturbingly aware that the only banter they could think of now consisted entirely of unkind comments about Chiaki's arrogance or Yoshino's seemingly limitless reserves of energy.

Things improved only slightly when Yoshino started having them driven home. He really felt for Uchida, who was coerced into going home with Yoshino more or less every day, and who was starting to develop sleep-deprived facial features disturbing for an elementary school student.

His parents, he was sure, were starting to worry about his schedule, which was approaching the point of burnout. But they held their tongues, as he knew they would, since they were reluctant to interrupt what was in so many ways a turn for the better. They also registered no complaints when he commented that the year-ending tests—technically not finals, since they were in primary school—seemed mysteriously easier than all the previous tests.

Occasionally, his mother would make side comments about "that Minami girl" and the hold she appeared to have on him. He ignored them, too overtaxed to try to explain, or even to really want to think about what she might or might not have been implying. After all, he had never even shown her any of that aborted, fallen-to-the-ground chocolate.

Personally, it felt strange being forced to leave his Mako-chan disguises gathering dust under his bed. Well, perhaps _forced_ wasn't quite the right word, but it sure felt like it. Something seemed persistently off, and he repeatedly caught himself beginning the process of disguising himself. Purely from force of habit, of course.

It was something else he preferred not to dwell on.

Still, they all stuck to it, each for their own reasons. It was apparent in Uchida's weary, frustrated attempts to satisfy Yoshino's expectations, in Touma's resolute trudges onward, and in his own refusal to quit. He knew he would never be able to look himself in the mirror again if he gave any less than his all, and his determination, instead of attenuating, seemed also to be purified by the flames.

Every once in a while, they would look each other in the eyes. And there, instead of any of the normal nuances, they would see only a reflection of their own inner fire, tinged with just a hint of exhaustion.

Finally, the day arrived.

* * *

The night after the exam, the masterminds of the whole endeavor surprised them, Fujioka and the others included, with a day of relaxation, rest, and food.

After dinner, he sat with Touma near the TV, watching Chiaki, Yoshino, and Keiko discuss some abstruse topic across the room. The latter two, especially, had struck up what was to him a completely unexpected rapport. He wondered whether they had something in common, or if it was just one of those peculiarities of life.

"I hope it's all worth it," Touma said suddenly.

She sat next to him, swirling her orange-flavored milk in her cup. He had never been a fan of fruit-flavored milk, himself.

"Me too," he responded, a moment later. "I wouldn't want to disappoint them, after all."

He gestured at Yoshino and Chiaki with his own drink cup.

Touma smiled abstractly.

"You know," she said. "I gave up two weeks of critical practice for this."

"I know, Touma," he responded automatically, making sure to sound harried. "You keep telling us this. You'll be fine."

"No, no, not just that," Touma insisted, waving her cup.

"Then what?" he asked, tilting his head to look at her from the corner of his eye.

"I'm not going to sit here and pretend that intramural middle school soccer means anything," she said. "Still, I was hoping to go to a school with a winning team. The top-ranked school we're supposedly aiming for—well it's pretty mediocre."

"But sticking together is more important?" he asked in the tone of one expressing a truism.

"Of course," she responded.

It was not until much, much later that he would understand the significance of that immediate response.

"I don't know what I was thinking," she added, "letting things go on like that. I guess I just didn't want to think about it."

"I didn't want to either," he agreed, nodding.

Touma stared across the room, as if trying to think of something to say.

"Also…" she began, finally.

He looked at her expectantly, but she paused for a moment.

"It still doesn't mean I can get away with not practicing and still make the team," she said, finally.

He almost felt like she had changed her mind about what to say.

"Yes, Touma, we know," he said, closing his eyes and smiling at her obsession with the topic.

"We know," he repeated.

From the corner of his eye, he watched Uchida laugh at one of Riko's jokes. Another unexpected rapport.

It occurred to Makoto that this was by far the most crowded this household had ever gotten.

"So how does it feel, not being, uh, _different_ for two weeks?" Touma asked suddenly.

Too late, she glanced around her to make sure no one was listening in.

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking at her warily. "It doesn't feel like anything, of course."

"I just thought that it might be weird not doing it for so long," she said, leaning over so she could speak more quietly.

She kept her voice and expression deliberately impassive.

"Well, frankly, I haven't really had any time to think about it," he said, half-truthfully. "All this work; it's a nice distraction from problems like that."

Touma looked at him with a weird expression. She didn't say anything, however.

A while later, she turned to look at Fujioka. He decided to change topics.

"You know," he said, drinking the last of his water, "if we really do make it go, then it hasn't really ended. An upper-tier school means upper-tier difficulty. We won't be able to slack off like we used to, not even to just keep up."

She turned her attention back to him.

"Well, I guess that just means we're all masochists then," she said, face very, very serious.

He looked her in the eye for a long moment.

Her eye twitched.

They both started laughing maniacally.

* * *

By mutual understanding, Fujioka left at a discreet moment from what was otherwise a group sleep-over. Makoto felt sorry for him.

Being somewhat younger, he had the privilege of staying—alone, with a heavy blanket, in the kotatsu room, separate from everyone else.

Well, it wasn't so bad. He had done this before, and it had been quite nice. Well, he had caught a cold, but that couldn't possibly happen twice in row. Hopefully.

At that moment, he would have been willing to pay quite a lot to purchase access to the other room. In fact, with just a nifty change of clothing—

_Damn it! Don't think about that!_

He gripped his head in his hands, seated at the kotatsu.

"Makoto-kun?" Haruka asked, suddenly appearing and looming over him.

"Haruka!" he responded, sitting straight up.

"I'm just here to check up on you," she said sweetly, bending down. "You sure you're okay out here?"

"Yeah, I am," he insisted, looking up. "Thanks for, uh—"

She patted him on the head, quieting him down.

"No, thank _you_," she said, looking him in the eye. "I'm grateful for what you guys have done, whatever happens."

He watched her get back up.

"Ah, well," he stammered. "That's—uh—well, you're—"

But she had already left to check up on the others.

* * *

That night, he spent hours tossing and turning, despite the travails of the day. He couldn't sleep, no matter how tired he was.

For some reason he couldn't get that head pat out of his mind. There was something about it which had lodged unaccountably in his mind. He couldn't get over it; there was something disturbing about it…

He turned over one last time.

Spreading his hand over his face, he stared at the ceiling through his fingers.

_Let's stop pretending,_ he thought._ I know exactly what's so disturbing about it._

He had always known.

* * *

He spent the rest of the week in a deep haze. Along with the others, he made up for all the energy he had used in the previous weeks by completely giving up on his remaining classes, which were unimportant anyway. Every day, he got up, drifted to school, sleepwalked his way through the practice and preparation for the graduation ceremony, then went home to catch up on some much deserved sleep.

It seemed cruel to him to subject them to one more week of waiting for their scores.

In his more lucid moments, though, he conceded that if the grades had magically been posted the day after the test, all five of them would have most likely just collapsed on the spot from nervous overexertion. The level of energy they had maintained earlier was just no longer possible, and such was the exhaustion of his emotional reserves that he slept soundly the night before the grades were due, no longer capable of being anxious enough to stay awake.

After school, they visited the posting board en masse, as only seemed appropriate, chatting with each other nervously. When they finally managed to place themselves in front of it, fighting their way through a large crowd of other students, they found themselves incapable of immediate reaction. Instead, they stood there for a long moment, mesmerized.

It was Touma who broke the spell, by slowly edging away to allow others to get a look. The others followed a moment later.

After shoving their way out of the crowd, they stood looking at each other, squinting a little in the sunlight.

It was Uchida who broke the ice, by suddenly breaking into a wide smile.

Uchida turned and smothered Yoshino in a deep embrace.

"We did it!" she said. "It was all worth it!"

Yoshino showed a crazy smile.

Makoto stood there watching the two of them engage in jubilant celebration, mind spinning. All through the past two weeks, he had avoided thinking about the possibility of failure. It was too painful, too dangerous to directly engage. And now he wouldn't have to. It was over. There was nothing to worry about, especially not with regards to Chiaki.

Touma stuck out her fist. Makoto stared at it for a couple of seconds before realizing what she wanted. He gave her an awkward fist bump. They looked at each other.

Without warning, Touma grabbed him with her right arm, locking his head under her elbow, throwing all propriety aside. Following suit, Uchida threw her weight onto Touma's back, who bore it without complaint.

"Man, what are we going to do now?" Touma asked rhetorically, turning and swinging the other two with her. "Shit, just wait until Natsuki hears about this!"

"Touma, I'm happy too," he said desperately, not sure whether his happiness was successfully overriding his lack of oxygen. "But it's kind of choking—

"I don't know!" Yoshino said back exuberantly. "You guys want ice cream? My treat!"

She turned and grabbed Chiaki, who until then had been preoccupied with standing still in speechless disbelief, by the shoulders. Chiaki looked up in surprise.

"You want ice cream, Chiaki?" Yoshino asked, practically yelling in her ear. "Come on! Join the party!"

"Yeah, come on! Wake up already! Uchida said, slapping her on the back.

Makoto stood up, his head finally free. For a moment, he just stood there smiling goofily, both at the good news and at the sight of Yoshino acting more unhinged than he had ever imagined possible.

"Chiaki," Touma said with faux-seriousness, leaning down a little to look her in the eye. "If you don't say anything, you're not getting any ice cream? Do you want that to happen, Chiaki?"

"Minami!" he added, joining the semicircle that was forming around Chiaki. "You don't have to look so shocked! It was all thanks to you, after all!"

He meant it.

"Yeah!" Yoshino agreed.

Chiaki nodded, then showed a tiny, endearing smile, the kind that he didn't know was possible. For a moment, despite the overall energy of the scene, he watched it, entranced. He couldn't—it was cute. That was the best way to put it.

It occurred to Makoto that this would be the last time he would ever see her—or any of them—in this uniform, with its ridiculous socks, precariously perched beret, and pink backpack.

Admittedly, he wouldn't miss his own beret all too much

And then the smile disappeared, replaced by a familiar expression of strong interest and support, one that was unique to her and strange in its subdued expression of fervor.

"Thank you all for cooperating," she said. "It means a lot to me. Now let's get that ice cream!"

She raised her arm in a fist pump. The others followed with various forms of cheers.

"Yeah!" he exclaimed, grabbing Chiaki into exactly the kind of arm-lock that Touma had placed on him earlier.

That triggered a sudden silence, and he was struck by the memory of having forgot himself and done this once before—and the resultant consequences.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

"Uh—" he began.

Chiaki, when she put her mind to it, had surprising strength, especially when she was embarrassed. In this case, she broke out of his hold, shoved him away, and added a blow to the face for good measure, sufficient to send him reeling.

"Don't get carried away," she said, turning away and hiding her expression. "Remember. You're still banned from my home. This was an exception."

"What?" he protested incredulously, rubbing his nose, but they were already and walking away.

_Where's the logic in that?_

He hurried to catch up.

* * *

His ebullient mood was therefore somewhat dissipated by the time they reached an ice cream shop. He excused himself to go the bathroom, relying on Touma to grab his order for him. He needed to think and—well, he needed to use the bathroom.

He certainly did not expect to see Chiaki when he emerged again.

"Ah—" he began uncertainly.

"Don't do that to me, okay?" Chiaki said, eyes skirting around the room, not looking at him.

He collected his thoughts and swallowed.

"I, uh, got carried away for—"

"I know," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder to interrupt him.

She lacked back over her own shoulder, at the others, who were visible through the glass windows of the shop.

She leaned forward suddenly.

"They want me to apologize," she whispered confidentially. "Can we just pretend I apologized?"

He blinked, flummoxed.

"Er…" he began.

But she had turned around, seemingly intent on leaving.

_That was short._

"Minami!" he said.

She looked back.

"Why did you ask me to join the group?" he asked. "To study for the exam, I mean. It's hardly as if…I mean usually…it's just I always thought I was banned."

Chiaki watched him for a moment.

"Well, because I want you around, obviously, baka-yaro," she said without apparent affection. "Try not to make me have to do this again."

Then, not even giving him a moment to think, she turned and left.

Makoto's breath caught in his throat.

He forced it back out, barely in time, and yelled:

"So does this mean I'm unbanned—"

"No!" she shot back.

He watched her leave, as always watching her hair sway at her waist.

Relaxing, he shrugged.

_Ah well_, he thought. _She'll come around. She's just being stubborn. There's nothing fundamental in the way anymore._

He amazed himself with his newfound confidence.

All in all, it was a good day.

_She's admitted she wants me around!_

That was enough to put him on cloud nine.

That was enough for his heart to make the concession, to admit, finally and fully, what his head had long thought to be true.

That crush on Haruka was a game. It always had been. This…

This was something else.

* * *

That weekend, he paid the Minami household a visit, appropriately disguised, of course.

"Oh, Mako-chan!" Kana said, looking up from the pastry she was eating when he entered the main room

She, too, had succeeded, but that had been almost an afterthought to him.

He looked around. Haruka had let him in, and was currently in the kitchen, but…

"Is Chiaki out?" he asked.

Kana turned her head to regard him with one eye.

"No, she's not," she said. "Why? Are you looking for her?"

"I was just curious…"

After a moment, she turned back to focus on her chocolate coronet.

"Well, if you must know, she's sick," Kana said.

"Really?" he asked rhetorically, glancing at Chiaki's closed door, down the hall. "I would have brought something if I had known. Do you think I'd be disturbing her if—No, of course I would, I should just sit down…"

"She's in the shower, idiot," Kana said, turning to peer at him carefully. "Don't you hear the running water?"

He realized immediately that, yes, he had been hearing the water the whole time, but had discounted it somehow.

_I'm really not any good at this_, he thought.

"Why not sit down and have some tea while you wait?" Haruka asked, sticking her head out of the kitchen.

"Ah, sure, thanks," he responded.

He walked over and sat down next to Kana, thanking Haruka when she set out some teacups. She had more to do in the kitchen, though.

"Though, you know," Kana said conspiratorially, leaning over. "This is a wonderful opportunity."

Makoto glanced at her.

"Really?" he asked. "For what?"

Kana gave a mischievous smile, the kind that warned him to be very, very worried.

"Well, probably not for you," she said. "But for me, definitely."

He narrowed his eyes.

"What are you planning, Kana?" he asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," she said, holding up her hands to show her innocence. "Nothing at all. I don't even have to lift a finger."

He continued to glare at her suspiciously, but started to drink his tea.

The sound of running water was gone, he realized.

A small while later, after he had finished his tea, he heard a door open somewhere in the hallway.

"Chiaki!" Haruka yelled from the kitchen. "Mako-chan is here!"

The sound of footsteps down the hallway.

"Oh, Mako-chan! It's been a while!" Chiaki said, standing above and behind him.

He looked up.

_Oh._

Makoto immediately looked in the opposite direction, toward the balcony.

"Oh, H—hi, Chiaki," he managed, covering one cheek with a hand to hide how flustered he was. "I, uh, I'm just here to visit. I heard you were sick."

He was being ridiculous, he knew. There was nothing to see, after all. She was neatly enshrined in her towel, which covered anything of importance. He had been unprepared, though, and now that he had reacted, he couldn't take it back.

"Ah, sorry," she said, a little surprised by his reaction. "I'll go change."

Only after he heard her leave did he dare look up.

Kana, of course, was busy suppressing a laugh.

"What?" he asked indignantly.

"Nothing," Kana insisted, straightening her face and sitting up.

Haruka stuck her head into the room.

"Actually," she said, "if you don't mind, Mako-chan, do you want to go keep her company? She really is sick, and she probably feels better after that shower, but she really should stay in bed. And since we haven't told anyone she's sick, you're the only visitor we've had, and…"

Haruka made some vague hand gestures, but he got the idea; this level of not-so-subtle hinting was practically a direct order. But…

"Uh—" he began.

"Yeah, Mako-chan!" Kana said, unable to keep her mouth from repeatedly twitching into a smile. "You should go!"

She gave him a couple of pushes to accentuate her point.

He was boxed in, and he knew it.

The moment he started walking down the hallway, Kana burst into laughter behind him, presumably to Haruka's consternation and confusion.

He spent a few minutes in the bathroom, as a plausible reason to let Chiaki finish changing. He had realized over the past few months that bathrooms were an enormously useful defense mechanism.

Then he walked in.

Chiaki turned to look at him as he entered.

"Ah, Haruka said you shouldn't be out of bed," he explained hastily. "So I'm here instead."

Privately, he was very, very grateful that he hadn't mistimed his entrance and entered before she finished changing.

Or perhaps disappointed.

He waved her towards the bed, and she sat down, with some reluctance, then lay down a moment later. He sat on the other bed, facing her.

_She must be sick, if she's going to just let me herd her around_, he thought.

The he realized he had nothing to say.

She lay there in silence. The atmosphere was oppressive. He couldn't put his finger on it.

_I need to say something._

"Er…so I heard you actually did it." he began.

"Yes," she said, turning to face him. "I overworked myself, and predictably caught the flu."

That seemed reasonable enough. Now that he thought about it, it was a minor miracle he himself hadn't come down with something.

_But that still doesn't explain it._

"Well, I hope you get better soon," he said as pleasantly as he could.

"Though I wonder if it was worth it," she said, curling into a ball under her sheets, with her head sticking out. She seemed cold. He had the irrational urge to move over and hug her, make her warmer.

"Worth it?" he asked, quietly, watching her face.

He was starting to get a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sensation of vertigo.

It was all so disturbingly familiar.

_No!_ he thought.

"Yeah," she said, closing her eyes halfway, and looking down.

"I mean, was it really worth it to push them into doing all that?" she asked. "At the time, all I could think about is how lonely we'd all be, how lonely I'd be. But now that I think about it, it was a little selfish."

He looked away to hide his expression.

_Why? Why is it still here? Why do I still feel something is wrong?_

_Am I crazy?_

"Ah, well, I'm sure they don't mind," he said, as steadily as he could. "I mean, from what I've seen, they could use more academic discipline. Maybe a new school is just what it'd take."

He was suddenly aware of Chiaki giving him a strange look. As discomfited as he was, he had said something a tad too insightful.

"It's just that everyone else can deal with it," Chiaki said, looking at the ceiling. "And I couldn't. I had to drag everyone along with me. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't made it."

_It wasn't dragging!_ he wanted to insist.

But he couldn't. He couldn't break character, even if he wanted desperately to lift the suffocating milieu.

"I'm—I'm sure you would have been fine either way," he said, making a nervous gesture with his fingers.

He sat there, head down, listening to the clock, waiting for a response that didn't come.

Finally, he dared look back at her face. She was watching him.

"I'm tired," she said. "Do you mind…"

"Ah, yes, sure!" he replied, jumping up immediately and hurrying to the door, shamefully eager to escape.

"Mako-chan—" she began.

He turned his head.

"Thanks again," she said, smiling slightly.

He stumbled out the door, heart racing, deaf even to Kana's mockery. He wanted to go home—no, the truth was he needed to take a walk. He needed to think, he told himself.

"Mako-chan" made his excuses and left.

* * *

He was fully three blocks out before he pulled himself together enough to think.

_Let's start from the beginning._

The Chiaki he saw as Mako-chan and Makoto were diametric opposites. One she talked to as a colleague, a friend, shared her feelings with. The other she constantly insulted, ordered around, held at arm's length.

He has always hated the duplicity involved.

He shook his head at himself. Not the main point!

Not this time, anyway.

From what he had heard from the others, no one else saw this persona of hers. Not Uchida, not Yoshino, not Kana…maybe Touma, in some aspects. Maybe Haruka.

He had always wondered what drove this difference in behavior. The reasonable thing to say was that it was just how she was, and there was no need to analyze it too deeply.

He couldn't believe that, though. He had always been convinced there was something fundamental driving the difference.

_I thought I'd found it!_ he agonized.

But he hadn't.

Or maybe he had, and he was just crazy.

Now that he thought about it, though, nothing had changed. Sure, she had seemed nicer to Makoto over the past week, but that could easily be ascribed to the both of them being in a better mood.

_But I was so sure!_

He thought back to what she had said.

…_how lonely I'd be…_

That was what she had said, and, once again, it had torn his heart, even though the rational part of him told him there was nothing there.

He'd thought he had solved the puzzle. It had made sense: her friends were leaving, therefore she was gloomy, therefore his constant apprehensions that something was wrong.

But it had happened again.

His thoughts kept coming back to the way she smiled at Mako-chan. There was something about it that destabilized him. Something that made his heart race like nothing else could.

Why couldn't he ever get her to smile at _Makoto_? That was all he wanted.

No, that was untrue. Not just a smile.

He wanted a smile to that broke whatever dark gloom she was nursing in her heart. One that proved to him nothing was wrong. One he still hadn't received.

And if that wasn't possible?

_Then I must be right, _he thought. _ And I will find what it is_. _I have to. And then, maybe, if I fix it…_

That was part of it, he realized. Haruka's smiles had always glowed, but he had never _earned_ them. Her heart was sunny.

Chiaki's wasn't. He was convinced of it, and he wanted to heal her, to be, for lack of a better analogy, her white knight.

He smiled slightly at his own naiveté.

_So what now?_ he thought.

He looked up, at the darkened streetlamp, sky, and sun, knowing it to be a cliché gesture, but still hoping somehow that it would give him an answer. It did not.

There was only one option, then.

He would watch, and learn all he could, and then do what he must.

Makoto nodded decisively to himself. What else could he do?

_I'm too young for this!_ he thought. _I'm not ready!_

He sneezed loudly.

* * *

_Author's note: Writing these short stories is interesting. In a way, they only rehash events I'd always had set somewhere in my mind's eye, but at the same time, they force me to put the characters in even sharper resolution. It's actually a good accompaniment to revising Patterns, I've realized._

_That being said, it's also just a little frustrating to always have to leave everything so open-ended, since, of course, I've already written the resolution somewhere else, in the (chronological) future._


	3. Illusion

Of course she was there.

Whether fate or just coincidence, it seemed only natural that on that night, she would trouble herself to glance back behind her, when it would have been so much easier to follow the normal course of things, and keep chatting with Uchida.

She did look back, though, and because she did, she spotted Touma, in that ridiculous outfit of hers, following Fujioka out a sidedoor, disappearing into the night.

It could have easily been nothing; in fact, probabilistically speaking, it almost certainly _was_ nothing. Fujioka and Touma were close, of course, and spoke about many things, not just soccer. Lately, they had been having more furtive meetings than ever, a fact she had tactfully ignored.

Her guess? It was about Kana.

That time, however, she had set down her end of the small table she and Uchida were carrying. When Uchida looked at her curiously, she apologized, advised Uchida and to get someone else to help put the table away, and dashed off after them.

Chiaki stared up at the ceiling above her, briefly losing the thread of reminiscence, half-heartedly going through the motions of taking a shower. It was a real luxury, the way they each had their own room and shower here, and quite a contrast to the way she normally had to fight Kana for possession of their only shower.

She had enjoyed it the previous couple of days, but at the moment it felt rather hollow.

She sighed, and leaned down to turn off the water, indirectly urging herself to move faster.

_How did I know? _She thought.

Ordinarily, she would never notice the kind of subtle signs that would warn of something wrong. Moreover, she knew she was the kind of person who would never notice.

Then how did she know?

She thought back to the previous day, when they had been out hiking.

_"Don't dodge the point! Why is this so important to you anyway?"_ she had asked, grilling Touma about the very topic.

But Touma hadn't answered, not really, and Chiaki had let the topic drop. She regretted that now.

That wasn't it, though. She never would have asked had she not already intuited, somehow, that the end was finally approaching.

She pulled off her plastic shower cap and tossed it aside. She had planned to wash her hair today, but not now, not after this.

Chiaki watched her reflection in the mirror, looked back at those wide pupils, framed in a narrow, still-childish face, dripping water, itself framed by long, luxurious, and mostly-dry hair. More than anything, she thought, she looked tired.

She wondered, nowadays, if she was pretty. She wished there was someone to ask.

Earlier that night, she had followed Touma out the door, into the darkness of the night, stalking them from a distance. It was tiring work, circling through a grove of trees when Fujioka and Touma walked past a field of grass, dodging her way through the darkness at the edge of flower garden when they passed through that, and finding a position behind a column when they finally stopped near the fish ponds.

She had never violated their privacy before, and had started to regret her decision, but forgotten it all instantly when she heard Fujioka say the fatal words:

_"...you're not really a boy, are you?"_

Chiaki had listened in rising horror as the fool babbled on incessantly, twisting the knife with each word, driving it deeper and deeper…

_What the hell was the baka-yaro thinking?_

She shook her head, dripping more water onto the counter. She couldn't blame Fujioka. How was he supposed to know how important it was to Touma, the kind of emotional whirlwind he was reaping? He couldn't possibly have had any idea.

_Even _I_ barely had any idea._

Just an idea, just a bare inkling, but it had been enough to send her out there, despite all good sense.

_"Shut up!"_ Touma had screamed, so loud the rafters above Chiaki seemed to shake, so loud it had driven a dagger into her heart as well. So loud that she was compelled to risk stepping out to take a look at the two of them, Touma's tragic features etched by the moonlight.

She had intervened. What else could she do? She had swooped in and dragged her out of the situation, injecting emotional support and shielding her from the worst of the fallout.

It wouldn't last, she knew. A real resolution was needed.

Chiaki finished drying herself, wrapped herself in the towel, and stepped out into her nice, private bedroom. She sat down on the luxurious bed, next to her prepared pajamas, hesitating before the next step.

She _had_ to intervene. She had possessed no other choice.

"_Aren't you the one who put me up to this?"_ Touma had asked, the day before.

Touma was right. It was ultimately her fault.

Wasn't it?

Chiaki thought back to the day they first met.

It was Uchida and Yoshino who had introduced Touma to her, showing her the boyish, aggressive girl one class over with the same surname, in a pitched argument with one of the actual boys in the class. A loner, Yoshino had commented on the way there, but they had thought she might be Chiaki's cousin.

Even before she had seen her, before circumstances caused an unexpected meeting, she had placed the plan in motion. A boy with the same surname! It was a perfect match for the missing slot in the family she was constructing. One she could pretend was her little brother, one who would hopefully be less troublesome than Makoto.

_After all, I can't trust him with something like that_, she thought. _At least not too closely._

Feeling a bit disturbed by the train of thought, Chiaki moved on.

There was an obvious problem with the idea, of course: Touma had turned out not to be male. But the moment Chiaki had seen her, any doubts she may have had vanished, swept away in a tide of _certainty_.

To this day, she had no idea what had triggered such a feeling. Everything had clicked, somehow. Touma was perfect for the role, she could tell by inspection, both in looks and behavior. All obstacles seemed to pale in comparison. Female? No matter! Only an advantage! By introducing _her_ as a brother into her little game, she could waive aside all possible concerns. There would be no need to worry.

_Worry about what?_ She mused briefly.

Well, anyway, it had seemed only logical that Touma would accede to the arrangement. Chiaki was certainly well-practiced in bullying people into doing things, and, under Touma's bellicose surface, the girl had proven surprisingly pliable, even if she had angered Chiaki by breaking disguise in front of her sisters.

Only later did she begin to suspect why this was the case.

The plan had not proven so bloodless after all. Touma had become her closest, most intimate friend. They played together, ate together, and, indeed, Touma had proven a better companion than any actual brother would likely have been. So much so that Chiaki dared do things she wouldn't have even considered with anyone else.

_There's no harm in a little play-acting, right?_

Touma would stay with her, she knew that. Or she was pretty sure, anyway.

She grabbed her head. She was feeling a little dizzy, probably from the humidity of the shower.

_Back on-topic_, she thought.

Touma was someone she cared about, and someone she had realized was forever skirting the edge of a cliff, destined to fall into the abyss. Chiaki could pull her back temporarily, but she knew the only real solution was to wait at the bottom, and catch her when she fell.

_And I put her there_, she thought. _It's my fault._

She imagined Touma, over in the next room, waiting for her return.

On that thought, she stood up and dressed, rapidly and efficiently, taking a moment to read the clock.

2:12 AM. Certainly late enough.

_No more procrastination._

* * *

It was far too late for decent people to be up, but Chiaki scanned the hallways just in case. There were murmurs of activity, probably reflecting the late hour at which they had sleep, but fortunately, no one was still wandering the halls. Importantly, Haruka seemed to be asleep.

She was disturbed by the fact that Kana's door was wide open and the room unoccupied, but she could hear talking coming from Riko's room, and had to assume that's where she was. What else could she do, after all? She couldn't just go back.

In what was nearly one motion, she closed her door and opened the next

Touma started, sitting up jerkily from her reclining position, even though she certainly must have been expecting her.

She had told Touma to expect her, after all. There was no way she could be expected to simply to take a shower and sleep, and had Touma not asked for some time alone, she would probably have continued her strategy of staying more or less attached to Touma's side.

She closed the door behind her.

As she walked forward, Touma's eyes tracked her every step of the way, glimmering in the darkness.

Chiaki took a deep breath to steel herself. She hated situations like this. They made her feel vulnerable.

But she would do what she must.

"Go ahead and lie back down, if you're tired," she said. "I don't blame you, and it shouldn't matter too much."

Touma, at that moment, looked almost scared of her.

"No, I'm—I'm fine," Touma said.

Wordlessly, she sat down next to Touma, her weight disturbing the balance of the bed. Touma's sleep clothes lay on the bed next to her—Touma hadn't changed or showered, despite her previous intimation that she would.

"Well, then," Chiaki said, turning to look at her prodigal brother, watching the way Touma's features were etched by the chiaroscuro of the room. "Can you tell me now why it's so important? I asked you before, but you wouldn't tell me. Have you figured it out?"

She drove straight to the main point—or one of the main points, at least. She took pains not to soften her normal harsh tone too much. She felt that normalcy might be soothing, on a subconscious level.

It was worth a shot, anyway.

Touma finally made eye contact, and Chiaki had a brief flashback to those same eyes, just a few hours ago, red from crying. It had taken a lot of work to make her presentable again, but fortunately, Haruka always carried every necessity with her; she was sure her sister wouldn't notice that her bottle of eye drops had diminished somewhat.

"I—well, I—," Touma began abortively, wringing her hands nervously.

She waited.

"I don't know," Touma said, looking away from Chiaki, eyes focusing on something across the room. "I don't know, that's the funny thing, you know?"

"And?" Chiaki pressed.

"I sort of knew it would be a big deal," Touma said. "That's why I kept putting off telling him for so long. But I never thought I'd explode like that. I guess…"

Touma looked down at her hands.

"I guess it was more important than I thought."

Chiaki watched her for a moment, watched the girl struggle to rationalize her own motivations.

"Why, Touma? Why?" she asked when she thought Touma had finally reached a conclusion, her face relaxing.

Touma didn't answer, however.

Chiaki closed her eyes, took a breath, and stood up, walking over to window, whose drawn curtains let through only a sliver of moonlight, enough to grant the room the shades of dark and light that were so prominent in her few of vision.

She had to say something, even if she couldn't look the other girl in the face while doing it.

"I'm sorry for all this," she began. "If I hadn't told you to pretend—"

"No, it's fine," Touma interrupted quietly, seeming to have anticipated her answer. "How could you have known it would become such a big deal?"

She paused, and Chiaki waited for her to continue. Better Touma bring it up herself, then for Chiaki to say it first. That was…easier.

"Especially since I didn't have to hide it from him in the first place," Touma said, finally. "I was just too embarrassed, and then I was the one who insisted on keeping it up. I—"

"I don't mean that," Chiaki interrupted, more forcefully, knowing now that she had to.

"I mean…"

She twisted her freshly washed hair around her finger, watching the way the moonlight shimmered on it, appreciating the slight distraction it provided.

"I mean, giving you a taste for this kind of thing in the first place," she said, biting the bullet. "That's what it is, isn't? You enjoy it. Being a boy."

She stopped, and Touma suck in a breath. But Touma said nothing, gave no audible indication of great surprise. That was all the confirmation Chiaki needed.

"I thought you might," Chiaki said. "That's my apology: for being selfish, doing this to you. I didn't realize, at first, what I was doing, but later…it was too late to stop. How stupid, to do something like this for entertainment."

She never described herself as stupid, and she hoped the word would make an impact.

"Though I must say…" she said, bending her head downward, allowing her hair to block some of the light.

"I must say," she repeated, stately the facts as succinctly as possible. "You did an excellent job. I had fun—"

Another sucked-in breath, but Chiaki didn't notice

"— I meant what I said earlier. You can continue, if you want, but I'd also understand if you wanted to quit, after all that."

"If I hadn't started it," she finished, "you might never have discovered something like this. And that might have worked out better."

She looked up again, wondering if she should do the cliché thing and pull aside the curtain so she could look at the moon. She forbore.

_Well, that's it,_ she thought. _I've given my little speech. She doesn't seem to hate me, but she might, eventually._

She surprised herself with the amount of the pain she felt on that last thought. No, it hadn't been bloodless at all.

"No," Touma said, voice a bit firmer than before.

Chiaki turned, surprised.

"No," Touma repeated, shaking her head. "This started before all that."

Chiaki tilted her head, the question implicit in her eyes.

"I've always known I was different," Touma said. "But I never thought it meant something like this. The boys never let me join their games, and I didn't think I wanted to."

Touma stopped there, again dropping her eyes.

_Should I ask?_ Chiaki thought.

"But all this," Touma began again, not giving her a chance to. "All this stuff with Fujioka. It was the first time I really got to experience it, I guess. He didn't think I was weird for any of the things I did, unlike everyone else I've met. We could talk about soccer, video games, girls…"

Her voice trailed off.

Chiaki smirked.

"By which you mean Kana, of course," she said. "And a little bit of me. Can you believe he _really _thought there was something going on with us?"

She made sure to dose her last sentence with extra incredulity, for comedic effect.

_Indeed, the very spectacle of Chiaki-hime making a joke should be enough to get a laugh out of her_, Chiaki thought. _I don't ever do it—I can't believe I just called myself that!_

She stopped, waiting for a response.

It came too late.

"Yeah, that was pretty funny," Touma said, unable even to give a slight appearance of sincerity.

Chiaki frowned at her failed attempt at humor and tried to read Touma's features, obscured by the lack of light. What was wrong?

"Sorry," she said awkwardly. "I was just…trying to lighten the mood."

"No, it's okay," Touma said, seeming at least to mean it, without giving any hint as to what was going on.

Chiaki dug in her mind for something to say. All she came up with was some fact about photons and retinas.

_Is this it, then? Have I lost her?_

Touma put her head in her hands, a gesture of despair.

"It was fun, like you said," she said, voice miserable. "Pretending all that time, that is. Pretending to be your brother and stuff. But I have no choice now, do I? Not anymore. I'll be surprised if he even talks to me again after something like this. I should just stay away from him from now on."

Chiaki watched her for a long moment, weighing her options. Touma was still talking to her, didn't seem to blame her at all. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about.

At least, not yet.

"I'd be surprised if he didn't _at_ _least_ keep in touch," she said, finally, focusing on what seemed to be Touma's real concern. "He's kind-hearted. You know that. Even if he really has problems with what you did, he wouldn't just…stop talking to you. He knows better than that."

"But he won't treat me the same anymore," Touma said, face still hidden. "How can he look at me the same way?"

Chiaki thought about that.

"That might be out of the question," she said, deciding that a lie, even a well-intentioned one, wasn't called for. "But who knows? Maybe he'll surprise you. You should have more faith in him."

"You think?" Touma asked, looking up again.

Her eyes were so full of hope that it stunned Chiaki.

This feeling…was it—was it jealousy?

_Stop it!_ Chiaki thought to herself. _What's wrong with you?_

"Perhaps," she responded, a bit more hesitantly than she had intended.

She sat back down and grabbed Touma's far shoulder in a gesture of support.

"But you have to ready, just in case he doesn't," she said. "You should go talk to him, in the morning. Apologize, and see what his response is. But, uh, try not to seem this emotional. That's probably a good idea."

Touma nodded silently.

"Besides," Chiaki added. "Nothing about this says we have to change how we behave towards each other. Like I said, you can keep acting like a boy. I won't mind."

Touma turned slowly towards her, eyes disturbingly intense, their luminescence setting them apart from the rest of her face.

"Really?" she asked.

"Well, yes," Chiaki said, surprised by the depth of her reaction. "I mean it's not like we were doing this for Fujioka's sake or anything like that."

Touma turned away and nodded to herself.

"Yeah, that's right," she said. "That's right. And I can finally stop wearing these god-awful shirts."

Touma smiled stupidly.

"Yeah," Chiaki said, smiling slightly at Touma's awkward attempt at humor.

She wondered if Touma was really as uncomfortable as she seemed, or if she was just seeing things.

_Of course she's uncomfortable! _She thought. _Think of the situation!_

She thought of something.

"If you want," she said, advancing the idea as naturally as she could. "I can stay here for the night."

Instead of relaxing, Touma seemed to tense up.

"There's no need to be embarrassed," Chiaki added hastily. "It happens to all of us—we're still young enough. I mean, just the other day, I slept with Haruka, since Kana—"

"I don't see why not," Touma said, sounding uncertain.

Chiaki couldn't understand why Touma was so reluctant. Was she really that mortified about needing comfort? But she didn't really seem embarrassed…

"Yeah, I can't think of any reason why not," Touma repeated, a moment later.

"Well," Chiaki said, getting up again, suddenly uncomfortable herself, "get changed. It's really late. We should sleep."

Touma nodded slowly, grabbing her pajamas off the bed.

She hesitated, though, for a just a moment, before pulling off her shirt.

Somehow understanding the meaning behind the hesitation, Chiaki turned sharply, facing the curtained window.

She felt her cheek with her hand.

Hot with embarrassment, and presumably red.

_Why?_ She thought. _It's not as if she really is a boy. We've done this plenty of times!_

Instead of turning around though, though, she walked up and held the curtain aside with her hand, looking outside at the moon and stars, finally following through on her earlier idea. The light poured in.

_I'm working so hard at this_, she thought. _I really do care about her._

_Of course I do! _She thought. _She's my friend! Probably my best friend. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep my friends happy and with me!_

_To the point of orchestrating a two-week cram session? To the point of continuing such an elaborate game of pretend?_

_It's for Touma too!_ She insisted. _So what if it might put off Fujioka? If she enjoys it, then why not?_

She dropped the train of thought, dropping the curtain as well, putting the room back in greater darkness.

Why hadn't either of them turned on a light?

Well, it was too late to bother.

"I'm done," Touma said.

She turned back. It was time to sleep.

* * *

She eventually stopped trying to hug Touma or anything like that, even if it made both of them warmer. Touma didn't seem to like it, which was fair enough, she supposed. They hadn't exactly done this before, and Touma was probably used to being alone. She certainly kicked Chiaki enough times during the night to make it quite clear that she wasn't used to anyone else being there; Chiaki probably reciprocated in kind.

More than that, Chiaki realized she was forcing it, just a little. The easy physicality they had before—it wasn't so easy anymore.

_When did this start happening? _She wondered, lying awake.

For a couple of months now, she realized.

_Well, that's stupid_, she thought. _There's absolutely no reason for it._

She resolved to reverse the trend.

Still, it wasn't worth trying again. It seemed…uncomfortable, almost like she didn't know what to do with her hands once they were there, and she was far too tired to fight it tonight.

She slept.

* * *

As she had expected, Fujioka forgave Touma more or less immediately—or more accurately, was never that angry to start with. It was only natural; he spent his free time putting up with Kana's antics, after all. Once he had overcome the initial, he had probably taken it all as a matter of course.

She did her best to make good on her previous resolution, and Touma proved quite amenable to the change in policy, much to her relief. Perhaps she, too, had decided on something similar.

She didn't blame her after all.

Despite this, however, she initially decided to refrain from any more experimental attempts to discover whatever it is Haruka and Kana were keeping from her. Not after having been discovered kissing by Fujioka.

However, just a day after that trip to Yoshino's…

* * *

Chiaki looked up from her book—a history of the Napoleonic wars—at the sound of the front door slamming.

Kana was due home, but there was no reason for her to be so violent with the door.

Chiaki sighed, wondering what it was this time. Had Keiko aggravated her in some particularly irksome way? Across the table, she could see Haruka running through a similar train of thought.

"I can't believe him!" Kana muttered loudly, walking into the room and throwing her bag to the corner of the wall. "What—what could have possessed him to do something like that? What kind of demon? And to think he wouldn't do it the other day!"

Kana held arms to her head, switching instantly from anger to confusion, twisting her body back and forth.

"It's really happening," she said. "It's really happening. Why wasn't I ready? I set it up. Why wasn't I ready?"

The last time Chiaki had seen her anything like this, Chiaki thought, was when, out of nowhere, Kana had exploded at her for rather routinely calling her an idiot.

That…

That had been scary.

Kana snapped her head left, then right, eyes wide, looking at both of them in turn as if she had only just noticed they were there.

The two of them looked back at her as if she had grown a second head right in front of them.

"What—what happened at school?" Haruka ventured shakily.

Kana's eyes darted around wildly. Despite all the crazy things that had happened in the past, Chiaki had never seen her quite this disheveled.

Finally, suddenly, Kana stopped, seeming to pull herself together.

"I'm going to get a glass of milk," she announced, gesturing at the kitchen with her thumb, then followed through on her words.

Haruka and Chiaki looked at each other, eyebrows raised, each hoping the other had some sort of insight into what was going on. No such luck.

Kana returned a few minutes later, aggressively wiping away a milk moustache with her sleeve.

She sat down with a thud, settling herself under the kotatsu. They watched her with naked curiosity.

Kana swallowed visibly.

"I…" she began.

Suddenly, she looked down, blushing more deeply than Chiaki had ever seen.

"Kana?" Chiaki asked, with more worry than she normally ever showed.

"It happened this morning," Kana said, sounding miserable, biting her sentences off sharply. "I don't know why I haven't gotten over it yet. I don't know. I decided I would tell you two immediately, but now…I can't do it. I thought I would act angry, but I couldn't keep it up. I…"

Haruka and Chiaki glanced at each other, once again.

"Alright, listen up!" Kana said, looking up suddenly, eyes defiant, face still red. "Fujioka and I have decided that we are going to be a couple, okay? You can stop looking at me like that! It's not that big a deal!"

In fact, they had been looking at Kana with only concern and confusion, but it seemed that from Kana's perspective, their stares had seemed overly inquisitive.

She and Haruka kept staring, though, momentarily dumbfounded.

A long while later, Haruka's face broke into an unusually goofy smile.

"Well, finally!" she said in a teasing tone, clapping mockingly at the performance. "I was wondering when you two would stop messing around. I mean, it's a bit early, but he's a good kid, and I've never really disapproved."

Kana said nothing, palms resting on the table, still blushing, seemingly out of energy, for once completely lost in a social situation.

"So have you told your friends?" Haruka asked, leaning forward.

"Shut up," Kana said weakly.

_Wait a second_, Chiaki thought.

_Something happens at school, between the two of them, and it changes everything? This is it! This is what they've been hiding from me!_

"Just what exactly happened?" she asked, turning and glaring at Kana as if she could use her eyes to drill the answer out of Kana.

"Nothing," Kana said, an obvious lie.

"Nevermind that," Haruka said, waving Chiaki's question aside with a hand.

Haruka eyes glanced at Chiaki, then immediately back to Kana. It was a look Chiaki recognized. It meant censorship was now in full effect.

"What happened, Kana? I demand to know!" Chiaki insisted, driving her fist in to the table with a loud thump.

Haruka cleared her throat, turning suddenly serious.

"Now that you two are nice and official," Haruka said, addressing Kana and ignoring Chiaki. "I'd—uh—"

Haruka stopped, losing her serious demeanor. Now _Haruka_ was looking embarrassed.

"I'd like to remind you to—"

Another quick glance at Chiaki.

"—be careful, okay?" Haruka finished, making nervous hand gestures. "You know, things happen—"

"I got it!" Kana said, looking even more mortified than before, if that were possible. "I can take care of myself."

Chiaki looked back and forth between the two of them, realizing they were exchanging signals, in some sort of code she couldn't crack.

"Do you have to talk about this _now_?" Kana asked.

"What are you two talking about?" she asked again, without any real hope of an answer—she might as well as been beseeching an empty table, for all the attention they paid to her.

"Well, ah, I'm not any good at this," Haruka said, looking done and blushing slightly. "Maybe someday later, okay?"

"Yeah, maybe," Kana said, somehow managing to sound skeptical despite the embarrassment in her voice.

"Listen to me!" Chiaki demanded.

"Well, I'll go make some tea!" Haruka said, jumping up to do just that.

"And I should change out of my uniform," Kana added, pushing herself away from the table.

"You two—" Chiaki began, but the two of them had already evacuated the room.

* * *

What was particularly aggravating was that it had seemed like a golden chance to figure it all out, and instead the truth had remained maddeningly out of reach, sealed away as always by her sisters.

Eventually, the frustration at her previous lack of edification, and the curiosity, became too much. She took every precaution this time, locking the door whenever it looked like she might have a chance, and waited for her opportunity.

Two weeks later she asked Touma for another try at imitating what she had seen on TV. Once again, they came up empty-handed.

She kept at it, though. Partly because it seemed to make Touma more pensive and clingy than usual, which she liked, and partly because it was fun. Or so it seemed. It was hard to qualify, but that, she felt sure, was an important clue.

Despite all her caution, however, one more incident occurred…

It began innocuously enough.

* * *

"Why not?" Touma demanded, grabbing her by the shoulder.

"You know I hate being reminded how bad I am at athletics!" Chiaki said, shrugging her hand off roughly. "Watching you play soccer is definitely not something I would enjoy."

"Why are you so hung-up on this?" Touma asked. "It is in no way a reflection on you. You can't be good at everything!"

"Look," Chiaki responded, trying to sound reasonable. "I just don't want to be there all alone, watching—"

"Then bring more people!" Touma said, raising her hand in a gesture of exasperation. "Bring Uchida and Yoshino, I don't care! Why is this such a big deal?"

"I don't know!" Chiaki shot back, mimicking her word usage. "Why _is_ this such a big deal? I mean, what's the big deal if I really don't see you play your cruddy soccer game?"

Chiaki bit her tongue, almost literally, but it was too late.

"Fine," Touma said, icily.

She turned away from Chiaki, not angry enough to actually leave, but clearly intending to spend the rest of her stay staring out the glass doors leading to their balcony.

Chiaki thought about it.

"Come on, Touma," she wheedled, draping herself onto Touma's back. "You know I didn't mean it. I just get angry easily."

Touma ignored her, looking away hastily, but Chiaki had gleaned just enough of her expression to know that she had judged correctly. Touma wasn't really that angry—she just wanted to put up a show of anger.

"Angry?" she asked patronizingly. "Furious?"

Touma stayed silent.

Chiaki had an idea.

Her face formed itself into a sinister expression. Had she been able to view herself in a mirror, she would have been able to see in her mischievous smile a striking similarity to Kana, a familial resemblance that was normally kept well-hidden.

She got off of Touma's back—then slid her hands under Touma's arms.

Touma lurched forward, sensing the danger—too late.

A long time ago, they had both discovered that they were very, very ticklish.

Within seconds she had Touma on the floor, incapacitated with laughter. She tried to roll over to escape, but Chiaki kept with it.

_I have the advantage_¸ she thought. _She—_

With a burst of strength, remarkable for someone who should have been disabled, Touma surged forward, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her sideways.

_Shit—_

Chiaki managed to grab Touma's left shoulder, using the weight of her own fall to turn her and keep her within arm's reach. But the counter-attack had begun. They were on an equal footing now.

"That's—that's unfair!" she managed to force out between bouts of laughter. "T—taking advantage of—"

She switched her left arm to defense, managing to catch Touma's forearm with her hand, holding on tightly. With her other hand, she attacked Touma's more exposed waist.

"St—still not ready to surrender?" Touma gasped out. "Then—"

Touma brought her left arm down, parried Chiaki's arm briefly away—and reached straight up the right side of her shirt, dragging part of the shirt up with her arm.

It was wholly unexpected, and wholly effective. She erupted with fresh bales of laughter.

She grabbed for Fujioka—the bear—and remembered, too late, that she no longer carried it around, now that she no longer needed it.

_I—I'm losing_, she thought desperately, her thoughts barely maintaining cohesion.

With her right arm, neglected and free after being batted away, she did what seemed to her the only remaining option.

She grabbed Touma's collar and pulled hard.

Touma, surprised by the maneuver, tried to brace herself, but collapsed forward anyway, her hand driving Chiaki's shirt up even higher.

Their lips landed right on each other.

This time, with the benefit of spontaneity, the flavor was entirely different. She looked up into Touma's shocked eyes, wondered briefly how Touma was interpreting this, then seemed to start losing the flow of her thoughts…

"Touma!"

Fujioka's startled voice.

Touma jumped into a standing position with astounding alacrity, propelling herself with her arms. Chiaki sat bolt upright.

"Not again!" she agonized out loud.

This time, of course, she had neglected to lock the door, since, everything being unplanned, she hadn't anticipated any reason to do so.

Fujioka was blushing even deeper than he had the first time.

"Touma—" he began.

He stopped abruptly, and swallowed hard.

Abruptly, his expression morphed into one of surprising placidity.

"You guys sure get into quite the fights," he said, in the resigned manner typical of those thinking _"There they go again!"_

She let out a relieved breath.

_Of course! Fujioka knows Touma's a girl now! No awkward conversation this time._

Fujioka sighed, rubbing the back of his head, while Touma found a convenient corner of the room to stare at.

"I clearly haven't learned my lesson about walking in here unannounced," he said.

"No, no, it's fine," Chiaki insisted, getting up and pulling him over to the kotatsu in her traditional fashion.

He really did make for a rather nice chair.

* * *

Later that night, Chiaki spotted Fujioka staring at Haruka from a distance, clearly thinking hard about something.

She intuited the reason, even if she didn't exactly understand.

"What are you planning?" she asked, sidling up to his side with deliberate suddenness.

He looked at her, surprised.

"What do you—" he began.

She reached up and grabbed his shoulder.

"Please don't say anything," she said, voice hard but quiet, to avoid raising anyone's attention. "It was an accident."

Fujioka eyed her carefully, showing a surprising amount of firmness.

"Was it really?" he asked skeptically.

"Even if it wasn't," she argued, realizing he probably couldn't be convinced of that, "What does it matter? You know now that Touma is a girl. It couldn't be more than a game anyway."

That much she did understand, or thought she did.

Fujioka looked at her a little longer.

"Alright," he said. "Alright."

He returned to the main room, thinking that it was really unforgiveable that Haruka had yet to give Chiaki the "strange things" talk, and that he really, seriously, for certain this time, needed to tell Haruka to get to it.

He would do it tomorrow.

For her part, Chiaki stood in the hallway a little longer, before walking over to help Haruka with the dishes.

* * *

"This is kind of an awkward question," she began the next day, tentatively.

"What is it?" Touma asked, looking at her curiously, carefully cropped hair giving her demeanor the illusion of boyishness.

"I've always sort of wondered," she said. "Am I attractive? You know, is my face good looking?"

Touma snorted derisively.

"Isn't it a bit early to be wondering about something like that?" she asked dismissively, peering at Chiaki's face nonetheless.

But then she looked away, perhaps sensing that the question was meant seriously.

"Yeah," she said. "I don't know why you wouldn't think so."

"I see," Chiaki answered blandly.

* * *

It was only a short while later that Haruka did indeed give her "the talk", after she demanded the answers out of her.

It could have gone more ideally, since Haruka was, as it turned out, very drunk. That had its advantages though, as Kana pointed out later—even she had had no idea just how much knowledge Haruka had compiled on the subject, by sheer virtue of being older, and without the facilitating influence of alcohol, they may never have found out. It was probably also because Haruka was drunk that she did not deflect their questions, as she was wont to do.

For Chiaki and Touma, it was as enlightening as it was supposed to be. Finally, all their questions answered! Though it was rather…less elegant than Chiaki had been expecting. There was no need anymore, however, for experimentation.

And so they stopped.

Chiaki could not deny, however, a certain urge to try it again. Was it some form of strange nostalgia?

A while later, however, Touma requested that the three of them help her buy a new set of shirts. It was fun, spending a whole day at the local shopping center, since Chiaki enjoyed such trips— even if Touma didn't really seem to.

Beforehand, Haruka had made lavish comments regarding how glad she was that Touma was growing up and setting aside her boyish manner of dress—only to be sorely disappointed when Touma insisted on buying more or less the same styles as before, just in different sizes.

Chiaki avoided being fooled. She knew that the reason Touma wanted new clothing was purely practical—Touma had spent the past two years buying nothing but oversized shirts capable of disguising her gender from Fujioka. Consequently, her closet was filled with clothes that were either way too big, or old, and therefore way too small. She made do with T-shirts from her soccer team and things like that, but that had begun to get ridiculous.

Plus, the T-shirts were starting to get visibly tight about the chest.

Still, Chiaki felt it rather irksome to have suggestion after suggestion of hers rejected by Touma. I mean, why ask them to help her shop if she was just going to ignore what they said? And was the pink shirt really that bad? Chiaki had really liked it…

Though she supposed anything beat shopping with those brothers of hers.

A week later, they made the same trip again, at Haruka's insistence. This time, Kana stayed home, and Natsuki came instead.

Not that he was any help, taking full advantage of the first excuse to flee the area. She supposed she couldn't blame him. Indeed, it would have been strange if he wanted to stay, considering that it was Haruka's intention to drag Touma through the paces of buying her first set of bras.

Chiaki was there because it seemed like she should be, though she didn't appreciate Haruka's repeated hints that her own turn was coming soon enough.

_I get it already!_ she had thought.

She wasn't very much help either, honestly. She had been so disturbed by the criterion she had started out using—picture Touma wearing it, then decide if it was good—that she had elected to stop trying to choose anything at all.

All in all, it had been rather…strange.

Still, she grew gradually more relaxed as the days passed. Their relationship was improving, she thought, and that was good.

And as quickly as that, February arrived.

* * *

_How do I always get suckered into these making these damn chocolates?_ Chiaki thought glumly, leaning on her bed, waiting for the objects in question to cool in the refrigerator.

However it was that Kana kept maneuvering her into doing this, this was the fourth-year running she had done this, and it was practically a tradition at this point.

_How annoying_, she thought.

She turning a mandarin orange over and over in her hand, regarding its smooth skin.

Still, it wasn't all bad, she mused. Haruka always appreciated her gifts. And Mako-chan. Mako-chan definitely deserved something this year.

Touma, however, was a new recipient. She wasn't generally in the habit of handing out chocolates to friends, but Touma was going to be an exception this year. She was a good friend and…

Chiaki thought about what had happened the past year, remembered the time they had spent at Yoshino's villa.

…a "boy", right? Touma would probably appreciate the gesture. One more brick in the wall, one more of the ties that bind.

Chiaki wrinkled her nose at the thought. Was it always necessary to think of things that way?

But she had made _four_ sets, and was still debating with herself whether her initial intention for the fourth was really a good idea.

The door to her room opened, but she didn't bother looking at her doorway. She knew who it was, after all. No one was visiting, Haruka was out…

"So who are they for this year, Chiaki?" Kana asked.

Chiaki started tossing the orange into the air in a game of catch with herself. It was an expression of just how much she cared for Kana's presence.

"Wouldn't you like to know, miss 'I buy _my _chocolates at the supermarket.'?" she asked, feeling in the mood to tweak Kana.

"Hey, I spent good money on those things!" Kana responded automatically.

That was followed by moment of silence, punctuated by the "_thump!"_ of the orange landing once more in Chiaki's hand. She didn't bother looking to see what Kana's face looked like.

She sensed, rather than saw, Kana approach her.

"Aww…" Kana said mockingly, deciding on her tack for the conversation. "Hime-chan is too upset to tell me who she has her eyes on this Valentines Day. It's okay, I won't tell—"

Chiaki sat bolt upright, leveling a finger at Kana.

"You—!" she began.

She was interrupting by the orange landing squarely on the crown of her head, bouncing only slightly before rolling off.

Kana caught it adroitly in her right hand, sitting down next to her.

"I told you to never call me that," Chiaki said with annoyance, having lost the force of her tirade in her orange-induced cringe.

"So you have," Kana said, industriously starting to peel the orange, making a show of ignoring her.

Chiaki frowned. She would never get any peace unless she gave in.

"Haruka, Touma, and Mako-chan," Chiaki said impatiently, attempting to push Kana off the bed. "Happy? Now get out."

"Really?" Kana said, arching an eyebrow. "How boring. So are you going to eat the fourth one?"

_Of course she looked_, Chiaki thought. _But she knows better than to steal any. Not after the poison chocolate two years ago._

She smiled slightly at the thought.

"Well, are you?" Kana asked again, narrowing her eyes, probably having read Chiaki's mind.

"_You_ certainly can't eat it," Chiaki said. "If that's what you're wondering. Now if we're done, why don't you go back to watching TV? Isn't one of your shows on?"

"I see how it is," Kana said, still not getting up. "No kindness towards your sister, huh?

She popped a slice of orange into her mouth, then offered Chiaki half. Chiaki took it, ignoring Kana's implied comparison, worried by the generosity. Ordinarily, Kana would have no compunction about eating the whole thing, even if she _had_ stolen it from Chiaki. She watched Kana eat the rest of her half whole.

"Then who is it for?" Kana asked, once she was finished chewing.

Chiaki looked at her.

"You know what I'm talking about," Kana said.

"Nobody," Chiaki snapped.

Kana smiled insidiously.

"Nobody, huh?" she said. "Well, I can understand that. I myself have given plenty of chocolate to 'Nobody'. But might I make a suggestion?"

"No you may not," Chiaki said.

"Makoto," Kana said, ignoring her as a matter of course. "He's been looking pretty lonely nowadays. I suggest he needs a bit of cheering up. He really enjoyed your gift last year, by all accounts. He still has it, you know."

_Of course he does, _Kana thought, as an aside. _He knows very well it was dropped on the floor._

Chiaki snorted dismissively.

"Him? That baka-yaro?"

"Remember what I said last year," Kana said, waving her hand. "It doesn't matter who you give it to, as long as you give it to someone."

"Uh-huh," Chiaki responded skeptically, crossing her arms, having learned over the past year that it was anything but that innocuous.

"Besides," Kana added. "Isn't it cruel of you? Making him do all that to be in the same school as you, and then ignoring him for all these months? Well, almost ignoring. You can tell him it's a delayed thank you."

Chiaki considered it.

"Hmm," Chiaki said, wondering why Kana was pushing so hard for this. "If I listened to you, there won't be any extra chocolate for you. You sure you're okay with that?"

Kana's eyes widened suddenly.

_Wait, she really didn't think of that?_ Chiaki thought.

"Wait, let's not be so hasty," Kana said, with ironic urgency. "We already had a party for them last year. There's no need to thank him again."

"Nope," Chiaki rejected suddenly, getting up and tossing her half of the orange into Kana's lap, making her decision then and there. "It's too late now. You had your chance."

"Wait!" Kana said, "Chiaki—"

But Chiaki was already walking out the door, wiping her hands against each other in a metaphorical gesture.

A moment later, Kana smiled triumphantly.

_Good old reverse psychology,_ Kana thought.

She mused a moment longer.

_Though I'm going to have to see if I can pry one of the chocolates off of "Mako-chan" later. It isn't fair that he gets two! Ah, who am I kidding—I'll never get it out of him._

* * *

_It's always fun messing with Kana_, Chiaki thought, walking down the hallway. _But that's an interesting excuse she provided. Thank you chocolates, or…apology chocolates? Yes, that'll work well. _

_And he has been rather quieter and less of an idiot lately. Should probably reward that._

She dwelled on it a bit more, just in case she was missing something.

_It's settled then_, she thought, opening the refrigerator to look at her four chocolates, mentally relating who they are for and why.

_Haruka, for sacrificing so much for me. _

_Mako-chan, for being a reliable senpai._

_Makoto, for listening to me a bit more nowadays._

_Touma, for being such a good "boy". For being such a good brother._

Her lip twitched slightly at "brother".

Well, it was only a game anyway.

Just a game.

* * *

_Author's Note: I'll admit I've had a bit of trouble in the past writing things from Chiaki's perspective, which if why I haven't done it much. But I think I like this formulation: simultaneously paranoid and naïve, but trying her best to be deliberative and methodical…and most importantly, not the most reliable of narrators, even (perhaps especially when) talking directly to herself._

_Touma and Chiaki form the most physical of the three groupings, primarily due to Makoto's influence in the other ones. Whether he is more pure-hearted than the others, or just a bit less mature, he gives everything he's involved in a different flavor. And while there is a bit of tension with Touma and Makoto, Makoto and Chiaki have been hamstrung too long by the Mako-chan dichotomy for anything like that to emerge, at least not initially. _

_I have a lot to think about in terms of revising Patterns…_

_Speaking of which, I was supposed to revise chapter three first, but didn't remember until I had this half-written. Ah, well._

_Besides continued revision, next up will be the conclusion to the Yoshino and Uchida omake for Patterns. The reason for this is because I have more or less accidentally thought through the entire plot, and so I might as well put it down while it's fresh. It's…more epic than I originally expected it to be._


End file.
